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Department ol Health library

HOMESTEAD: THE HOUSEHOLDS OF A
MILL TOWN

RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION PUBLICATIONS

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CHARITIES PUBLICATION COMMITTEE

IO< EAST 22D SIKII.I, NliW YORK

RUSSELL SAGE
FOUNDATION

HOMESTEAD

THE HOUSEHOLDS OF A
MILL TOWN

MARGARET F. BYINGTON

FORMERLY DISTRICT AGENT, BOSTON ASSOCIATED CHARITIES; ASSISTANT

SECRETARY, CHARITY ORGANIZATION DEPARTMENT,

RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION

THE PITTSBURGH SURVEY

FINDINGS IN SIX VOLUMES

Edited by
PAUL UNDERWOOD KELLOGG

NEW YORK
CHARITIES PUBLICATION
COMMITTEE MCMX

FROM LIBRARY OF

THE

DEPART OF PUBUO HEALTH
TORONTO.

IKI SS Of WM. I . II 11. 00.
I IIII.ADI I.IHIA

EDITOR'S FOREWORD

THE family as a social unit takes us back into shadows be-
yond where history begins; the town carries with it a
thousand written memories of walled boroughs, county
markets and communes, where self-government had its beginnings.
But the mill with its acres of tracks and sheds, its continuous opera-
tion, its intricate plan of discipline, of interlocking processes, of
insistent demands upon human nature, is a newer institution.
Factory production is less than two centuries old. The power
transmission through which the modern plant with its thousands
of workmen has expanded and developed, is scarcely as many
generations old. Electrically charged wires have become the
binding nervous cords of industrial mechanism well within the
memory of living men.

Miss Byington's study is essentially a portrayal of these two
older social institutions, the family and the town, as they are
brought into contact with this new insurgent third. Has their
development and equipment kept pace with mechanical invention?
Have they held their own against the mill? Is the balance of life
and work preserved? Or have we, in the industrial town of twen-
tieth century America, not a "deserted village" such as Goldsmith
lamented in eighteenth century England, but a more serious, anti-
thetical problem in an overcrowded, overwrought aggregate of
households. The query is, not shall "every rood of ground main-
tain its man," but shall the day's work afford an adequate basis for
American livelihood?

Such a description, however modest in scope and put forth
in the homely imagery of domestic life, deals thus with the forces
which are wrenching at the very structure of society. There are
other, perhaps more obvious circumstances, which give this book a
distinctive place in the general scheme of these volumes. The
colleagues in the field work of the Pittsburgh Survey took up special

EDITOR S FOREWORD

factors affecting the welfare of the wage-earning population — such
as sanitation, housing and public education; Miss Byington's com-
mission was to analyze these factors as they enter jointly into the
life of one of the small industrial communities which are character-
istic of the Pittsburgh District, and especially to analyze them as
they bear upon the well-being of family groups. Her book also
complements Mr. Fitch's volume on wages and the general labor
conditions in the steel industry.

In carrying out this commission, Miss Byington made an in-
timate case study of 90 households, employing methods of budget
taking which have been developed for standard of living inquiries.
She brought to her work, as basis for comparisons, an acquaint-
ance with tenement conditions in New York and Boston. The
resulting data have some rather obvious statistical shortcomings,
which are explained in the appendix; but as a transcript of
everyday economic existence, they served at once to re-enforce
and to check up the impressions which grew out of her personal
contact with the people who earned the money, and ate the
food, and lived in the houses, and worshipped in the churches
of this town. If the book inevitably brings out sharply the
odds of life with which many industrial communities have to
reckon, we trust that the loyalty of Homestead residents will not
take offense that theirs should have been the town thus singled out
for study. "The rank and file of the people are with you," said
an old mill man. To housekeepers and steel workers, to pro-
fessional and business people, who gave freely of their time and
information, we cannot offer thanks, for the book is partly theirs.
Theirs, also, are the two irrepressible, grim interrogations which
underlie both the statistical tables and the bits of neighborly
gossip with which the author has enlivened her narrative. In
their bearings upon contemporary economic and social conditions,
these are questions for a nation as well as for this community.

I he first has to do with the town: how shall local self-
government keep abreast of a nationalized industry?

The second has to do with the family: here is a town de-
pendent upon one of tin- greal industries of America, which has
profited by brill i.int invention, bv organizing genius, by a nation.il
policy ol tariff protection. It was studied at the close of the

EDITOR S FOREWORD

longest period of prosperity which has been known by our genera-
tion. What has that prosperity brought to the rank and file of
the people whose waking hours are put into the industry?

Miss Byington has summed up in a single phrase the nega-
tive aspects of the situation so far as the men are concerned,
who "turn daily from twelve hours in the din of the huge mills
to home, supper, a smoke and bed." What steel production
holds out to the families of these men she sets forth within the
covers of this book.

Paul U. Kellogg

Director Pittsburgh Survey

Vll

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Editor's Foreword v

PART I

THE MILL AND THE TOWN

Chapter I
Homestead and the Great Strike 3

Chapter II
The Make-up of the Town 12

PART II
THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING HOUSEHOLDS

Chapter III
Work, Wages, and the Cost of Living 35

Chapter IV
Rent in the Household Budget 46

Chapter V
Table and Dinner Pail 63

Chapter VI
Other Expenditures: The Budget as a Whole . . .81

Chapter VII
Of Human Relationships 107

Chapter VIII
The Children of Homestead 118

PART III

THE SLAV AS A HOMESTEADER

Chapter IX
The Slavs 131

Chapter X

Life at 1 1. 65 a Day 138

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter XI page

Family Life of the Slavs 145

Chapter XII
The Slav Organized 158

PART IV

THE MILL AND THE HOUSEHOLD

Chapter XIII

The Mill and the Household 171

APPENDICES

APPENDIX

I. Methods of Budget Study 187

II. Tables giving general description and average weekly

expenditure of each of the 90 budget families . . 206

III. Employes in Homestead Plant of the United States

Steel Corporation classified according to skill,
citizenship, conjugal condition, etc., Mar. 1, 1907 . 214

IV. Classification and Earnings of Employes in Three

Representative Steel Plants in the Pittsburgh

District 215

V. An Act to Enable Borough Councils to Establish

Boards of Health. State of Pennsylvania. 1893 218
VI. Report of the Board of Health of the Borough of

Homestead for the year ending December 31, 1908 222
VII. Record of Casualties on Unprotected Grade Cross-
ings, Homestead, 1905- 1907 233

VIII. Seven-Day Labor 236

IX. Cost of Living in Pittsburgh 237

X. Ratings on Men Employed in Iron and Steel Industry,

by Prudential Insurance Company of America 243

XI. Carnegie Relief Fund 245

XII. Accident Relief Plan of the United States Steel
poration

XIII. The Carnegie I- ibrary. Homestead .

By W. F. Stevens, Librarian

XIV. Slavic Organizations in Homestead
XV. Population of Homestead anil Munhall. 1910

Cor

249
255

271
276

1 k ftdi

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece
i

The Homestead Plant: Carnegie Steel Company

Pittsburgh Survey Map

Homestead from the Pittsburgh Side of the Monongahela

Of the Old Time Irish Immigration (In color)

Head: Slavic Day Laborer (In color)

Detached Dwellings of the Better Type. Sixteenth Avenue

Munhall

"The Mansion"

The Street

Glen Alley, a Few Blocks from Frick Park, Homestead
Double Grade Crossing Near the Heart of Homestead

An Unpaved Alley

Where the Mill Meets the Town

Slavic Laborers

Back Yard Possibilities in Homestead — I
Back Yard Possibilities in Homestead — 1 1
A One-Room Household

A " Front Room"

Row of Detached Workingmen's Houses in Munhall; Mill

Stacks Showing above Housetops
Frame Houses. Five rooms and bath
Brick Houses. Four rooms and bath

Residence Street

"Buckets"

The Street Market ....
Where Some of the Surplus Goes
Eighth Avenue at Night, Homestead
A Nickelodeon Audience in Homestead

On the Outskirts

In the Crowded Section

Spontaneous Recreation Center, Homestead, 1907
Saloon Corner, Saturday Night ....

19
22

37
4'
48
48

53
56

102

107

1 1 1

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Lights of Kenny wood Park

Carnegie Library, Munhall .

Orchestra; Carnegie Library

Band Stand . .

In Carnegie's Footsteps

The Brook in Munhall Hollow

Draughting Room, Schwab Manual Training School

Carpenter Shop, Schwab Manual Training School .

Machine Room, Schwab Manual Training School .

Slav: Calling (In color)

Section of Ward Two, Homestead, 1908

Slavic Court

Summer Evening in a Court

Wash-Day in a Homestead Court

Into America Through the Second Ward of Homestead

When Meadows Have Grown Too Many Smokestacks

Out of Work (Homestead Court, Spring of 1908) .

A Contrast — I ....

A Contrast — 1 1

Gathered for a Bit of Gossip

Washing up After a Day in the Mill

Greek Catholic Church

Old Worlds in New (In color) .

Going Home from Work

Type of Steel Worker: Thirty-five Years from Germany

Type of Steel Worker: Slav

Type of Steel Worker: Pennsylvanian

Balcony and Entrance, Carnegie Library, Homestead

FACING
PAGE

>3
16

17
'7
•9

[21

124

I24
I27
[29
[32

'33

'37
[41

[44

'45

.48

57
[61

.64

73
,76

,78

180

258

XII

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE , PACE

i. Total population, and number and per cent of native and foreign born in

Homestead, 1900 . . 13

2. Total population, and per cent of native white and foreign born in four

boroughs of Allegheny County, 1900. ... ... 13

3. Total employes, and number and per cent of various racial groups in the

Homestead Plant, Carnegie Steel Co., July, 1907 13

4. Homestead and Munhall taxes, 1907 20

5. Analysis of 90 budget families. — By racial group and normal weekly

wage of man 38

6. Men employed in the Homestead Mill in July, 1907. Number and per-

centages. By racial groups and degree of skill 4°

7. 90 budget families. — By racial and expenditure group .... 44

8. Average weekly expenditures of 90 budget families in 1907: amounts

and percentages. — By chief items of expenditure and racial group. . 44

9. Average weekly expenditures of 90 budget families, amounts and per-

centages.— By chief items of expenditure and expenditure group . . 45

10. Average weekly expenditures of 77 house-renting families, amounts and

percentages. — By chief items of expenditure and expenditure group . 45

1 1 . Average amount of rent per week paid by the 77 house-renting families. —

By expenditure and racial group 50

12. Expenditure for rent of -jy house-renting families. Average amount and

percentage of total expenditure. — By racial group 52

13. Expenditure for rent of yy house-renting families. Average amount

and percent of total expenditure. — By expenditure group ... 52

14. Families having running water in the house and indoor closets. — By

weekly rent 54

15. 18 house purchasers among 90 budget families. — By normal weekly in-

come and by racial group 57

16. Average weekly expenditure for food of 90 budget families and per cent

of total expenditure. — By racial group 68

17. Same as Table 16. — By expenditure group 68

18. Average weekly expenditure for food of 90 budget families. — By racial

and expenditure group 68

19. Average expenditure for food per man per day of 90 budget families. — By

racial and expenditure group 69

20. Twenty-one families spending less than 22 cents per man per day for

food. — By expenditure and racial groups 72

21. Itemized account of food expenditures for one week by a thrifty house-

keeper 76

22. Itemized account of food expenditures for one week for a poor house-

keeper 76

23. Two weekly food budgets of a thrifty family 78

24. Average weekly expenditure of 90 budget families for various items. — By

expenditure group 84

25. Ratio of weekly expenditures for various items between different ex-

penditure groups 84

26. Number of persons insured in 90 budget families and per cent of families

carrying insurance. — By expenditure group 91

xiii

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE PAGE

27. Number of persons in 90 budget families insured in regular companies

and lodges. — By racial group 91

28. Expenditures of a family for one week in 1907 (Normal time) and in

1908 (Time of depression) 98

29. Budget families whose income included money drawn from the bank or

goods secured on credit. — By income and racial group .... 99

30. Food purchased on special order for boarders during month account was

kept 139

31. Food expenditures of a Slavic family for one week 141

32. Two hundred and thirty-nine Slavic families in 21 courts. — By numbers,

nationality and number of lodgers 143

33. Number of persons per room in the 21 courts in families which took

lodgers compared with the number in families which did not take
lodgers, January, 1908 144

34. Number of births in each ward in Homestead for 1907. — By racial group . 146

35. Number of deaths of children under two years of age in each ward in

Homestead for 1907. — By racial group 146

36. Ratio of children born in each ward in Homestead in 1907 to deaths of

children under two in the same ward. — By racial group . . .146

37. Average weekly expenditure of 29 Slavic budget families . . . • '52

38. Average expenditure of Slavic families compared with those of other

races spending more than $15 per week 156

39. Average expenditures of two groups of 10 families each, those spending

$15 or more a week and those spending less than $12, with the ratio

of increase 1 56

40. Membership, dues and benefits of 9 Slavic societies in 1908 .... 162

APPENDIX I

1. Analysis of 90 budget families. — By racial group, occupation and normal

weekly wage of man 200

2. Average normal weekly income and income from specified sources, of 90

budget families. — By racial group 201

3. 90 budget families. — By number of families having income from given

sources in normal times and by racial group 201

4. Average size of families, and of families including lodgers. — By expendi-

ture and nationality groups 201

5. 90 budget families. — Number of persons per room by racial group 202
o. Number of house-owning and house-renting families having water in

house, and number having two or more persons per room. — By ex-
penditure group 202

7. 90 budget families occupying tenements of specified number of rooms. —

By racial group 202

8. 90 budget families occupying specified number of rooms. — By expendi-

ture group 203

9. Cost of certain articles of food in nine cities and ratio of the cost of these

articles in other cities to the cost in Pittsburgh. — By cents per pound . 203

10. Total average weekly expenditures of house-renting families expending

less than $ 12 a week, and proportions spent for food and rent by
racial group 204

11. Average expenditure for food per man per day, by size of family and

expenditure group 204

APPENDIX II
Tables giving general description and average weekly expenditure of each of

tne 90 budget families 206

xiv

LIST OF TABLES

APPENDIX III PAGE

Employes in Homestead Plant of the United States Steel Corporation
classified according to skill, citizenship, conjugal condition, etc.,
Mar. i, 1907 214

APPENDIX IV
Classification and earnings of employes in three representative Steel Plants

of the Pittsburgh District. October 1, 1907 215

3600 1250 <\7b0 M3G

-SCALE . 300 IT TO 1/lCM

PART I
THE MILL AND THE TOWN

CHAPTER I
HOMESTEAD AND THE GREAT STRIKE

HOMESTEAD gives at the first a sense of the stress of
industry rather than of the old time household cheer
which its name suggests. The banks of the brown Monon-
gahela are preempted on one side by the railroad, on the other
by unsightly stretches of mill yards. Gray plumes of smoke hang
heavily from the stacks of the long, low mill buildings, and noise
and effort dominate what once were quiet pasture lands.

On the slope which rises steeply behind the mill are the
Carnegie Library and the "mansion" of the mill superintendent,
with the larger and more attractive dwellings of the town grouped
about two small parks. Here and there the towers of a church
rise in relief. The green of the parks modifies the first impression
of dreariness by one of prosperity such as is not infrequent in
American industrial towns. Turn up a side street, however, and
you pass uniform frame houses, closely built and dulled by the
smoke; and below, on the flats behind the mill, are cluttered
alleys, unsightly and unsanitary, the dwelling place of the Slavic
laborers. The trees are dwarfed and the foliage withered by the
fumes; the air is gray, and only from the top of the hill above the
smoke is the sky clear blue.

There is more to tell, however, than can be gained by
first impressions. The Homestead I would interpret in detail is
neither the mill nor the town, but is made up of the households
of working people, the sturdy Scotch and Welsh and German of
the early immigration, the sons of Yankee "buckwheats," and
the daughters of Pennsylvania Dutch farmers. Set off against
the hill streets, lined with these English-speaking homes, are the
courts where all Austria-Hungary seems gathered afresh. Here
are lodging houses filled with single men, where the " boarding
bosses" keep accounts in Russian, Slovak or Hungarian; alley

homestead: the households of a mill town

dwellings where immigrant families are venturing a permanent
home in one or two rooms, near by the Slavic church where
their children are christened and receive their first communion.
It is the home life the mill town leads on the wages the mill pays
that has been the subject of my study.

The glaring evils and startling injustices found on every
hand in the congested sections of large cities supplied the first
and strongest impetus toward social reform in this country. But
many of the unwholesome living conditions which we associate
with the poorer city neighborhoods are repeated in the average
mill town with less excuse and with as bitter effects. Further-
more, industrial conditions, such as low wages and long hours
of labor, have as direct an influence upon home life as high rents
and bad sanitation, and their influence can be studied in a com-
munity which grows up about a single plant more easily than in
one which presents the complications of a great city. With a
knowledge of tenement districts in New York and Boston as
a basis of comparison, I spent the greater part of a year in Home-
stead, studying the family side of the labor problem as presented
there.

Homestead* is a community of approximately 25,000 people,
chiefly mill workers and their families. There is today no labor or-
ganization among them. Trade unionism belonged to an earlier
chapter in the history of the town. A generation of boys has
now grown up and entered the mills without knowing by per-
sonal experience what unionism is, or, except by hearsay, what the
great strike of 1892 was about. Yet, as the history of the
town has been largely the history of the mill, I must first sketch
the development of both, and the labor struggle which fifteen
years ago determined the relations between them.

As late as 1870, two farms, the old McClure and West home-
steads, occupied the site of the present mill and town. Scattered
along the river on smaller holdings were the simple homes of a
farming population. To get to Pittsburgh, seven miles down
stream, the people had either to travel the distance by road or
cross the river and take the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Brad-

* Politically, as will be noted later, Homestead is made up of three inde-
pendent boroughs: in common speech the one term covers ilu-m ill,

HOMESTEAD AND THE GREAT STRIKE

dock, two miles away. In 1871, the Homestead Bank and Life
Insurance Company, which had bought the farms, cut them up into
building lots and put them on the market, intending that Home-
stead should be a residential suburb. With the building of the
Pittsburgh, Virginia and Charleston Railroad in 1872, it became
possible for people doing business in the city to live in Homestead.
In 1874 the first church, St. John's Lutheran, was erected, and
the little village began to have a social life of its own. In 1878,
when its population was about 600, Bryce and Highbie opened a
glass factory and the town's industrial history began. Ten houses,
the first to be built for rent, were erected on Fifth Avenue for
the married workmen. The land above the works was still an
open field where farmers from the nearby country drove their cows
to graze.

In 1 88 1, when Klomans built a steel mill on the banks
of the river, the step definitely determining the future of Home-
stead was taken. The Klomans mill was absorbed by the Carnegie
Steel Company in 1886, and became in turn one of the most im-
portant plants of the United States Steel Corporation on its or-
ganization in 1 90 1 . The site of Homestead made its part in this in-
dustrial development almost inevitable. Situated on the Monon-
gahela River, six miles below its confluence with the Youghiogheny
and seven miles above the point where with the Allegheny it
forms the Ohio, the town has unusual facilities for water carriage,
as well as the supply of water necessary for the processes of steel
manufacture. Railroad and lake routes bring iron ores from
the mines of Michigan to meet here the fuel needed to reduce
them. The river, which is navigable from Fairmont, West
Virginia, — a distance of over one hundred miles, — runs through a
region of bituminous mines. It has been this nearness to the
coal beds which has made the Pittsburgh District a steel center,
and the level space in the bend of the river at Homestead the
floor of a great steel mill.

By 1892, 8000 people had gathered at Homestead, though
the town still kept many of its village characteristics. The
population was composed of a fairly homogeneous group,
most of them speaking the same language and mingling freely
in school, church and neighborhood life, as well as within the

5 J

homestead: the households of a mill town

mill. While it is impossible to secure any definite figures as to
the make-up of the population in those days, certain facts
give us a general picture of the earlier situation. Among the
families visited for this study, half of the Americans and
about half of the foreign born, who came from Great Britain and
Western Europe, had been 15 years in Homestead; of 264 Slavs,
however, only 31 were living here before the strike of 1892.

The churches founded before 1892 were Lutheran, Presby-
terian, Methodist, Baptist, United Presbyterian, Episcopal, and
German Evangelical. It was not until 1896 that a Slavic church
was built. During the ten years following the starting of the
mill, there was still much immigration to the United States from
Great Britain and Germany, and the growing town was in a large
measure recruited from these peoples. The good pay offered in
the mills attracted also American boys. Apparently, the officials
fostered this natural gravitation to the industry.

In a letter written in the early days, Captain Jones, of the
Edgar Thomson Works, said, "My experience has shown that Ger-
mans, Irish, Swedes and 'buckwheats' (young American country
boys), judiciously mixed, make the most effective, tractable force
you can find. Scotsmen do very well, are honest and faithful.
Welsh can be used in limited quantities. But Englishmen have
been the worst class of men — sticklers for high wages, small pro-
duction and strikes."*

According to an old resident, the men of each nationality
often grouped themselves in separate mills, and, when there were
good openings, sent to the old country for their friends. The ties
thus created had their share in making possible an early de-
velopment of trade unionism, for along with uniform standards of
living, existed the opportunity to organize in order to secure con-
ditions which would make those standards possible. Almost
immediately after the opening of the mill the men formed a lodge
of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, and
within a year there was a small, quickly settled strike.

The Homestead lodges grew steadily in power until they held
an assured place. The wage scale was each year fixed by agree-
ment between committees representing the Amalgamated Associa-

• Bridge, J. H.S Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Company, p. 81.

HOMESTEAD AND THE GREAT STRIKE

tion and the employers in the industry. Within the mill also
the men had much influence, and in many minor points con-
trolled the action even of the superintendents. There developed,
however, a diversity of interest, not between the different races
but between two main wage groups, — the less skilled men, many of
whom are paid by the day, and the highly skilled workers upon
whom the output of the mills depends, who are paid by the ton.
The lodges of the Amalgamated Association, consisting almost
entirely of the tonnage men, were charged with ignoring the
interests of the day men. A man employed there at the time
told me that some of the highly skilled workers, such as rollers, —
who were really sub-bosses and were paid on the basis of the out-
put of the gang under them, — made as much as I300 in two weeks.
The rank and file felt with some bitterness that not only were the
capitalists securing far more than their share of the proceeds
of labor, but that these few among the workers were also unduly
favored. False standards in some cases were developed by the
abnormally high pay, and the tendency of the few to spend care-
lessly what had been earned thus easily gave the town a reputation
for extravagance. A woman said, " My father used to earn $300
in two weeks and yet he never saved anything, and never tried to
buy a house; that was because he drank. Why, now we have
paid for our house and have money in the bank and the 'mister'
never makes more than $25 a week." The reckless expenditure of
the exceptionally paid men, however, apparently no more than
reflected the general spirit of the Pittsburgh District in days when
new processes were doubling output and money was easily made.
This, then, was the situation at the time of the great strike
in 1892, which in so many ways influenced the future of Home-
stead. Within the five years preceding, the Carnegie Steel Com-
pany had doubled its capital and had increased the number of
employes in Homestead alone to about 4000, 800 of whom were
members of the Amalgamated Association. In 1889, a sliding
scale had been introduced by which the rate of pay per ton varied
with the market price of steel, under the proviso, however, that
if the latter fell below $25 per ton no further reduction in wages
was to be made. This agreement did not affect the wages of the
day men. In the spring of 1892, the Association voted to renew

homestead: the households of a mill town

the contract on the old terms, but the company demanded that
the base should be $22 instead of $25 and that the contract should
expire in January instead of July. After a number of conferences,
the company advanced its minimum to $23 and the men reduced
theirs to I24, but no concessions at all were made in regard to the
date of expiration of the contract. The men felt that in case of
disagreement and strike they would be at a far greater disadvantage
in the winter when lack of work would be more keenly felt. The
company, on the other hand, claimed that as its commercial con-
tracts were frequently made to date from January 1, it was
necessary to know at that time what was to be the labor cost for
the ensuing year.

Behind these ostensible points of disagreement, however,
lay one fundamental issue which, though seldom mentioned, was
the keynote of the strike, — trade unionism. The Amalgamated
Association had been taking to itself more and more power. A
small group secured the desirable positions; the permission of
the Association had to be obtained before any of its members
could be discharged. It stood in the way of lowering individual
wage rates, and in general not only obstructed the free hand which
the company wanted but interfered with many details of
operation.

In 1889, H. C. Frick became chairman of Carnegie Brothers
and Company. As he had aroused the antagonism of the labor
world through his suppression of the strike in the coke region a
few years before, the mill men feared that he would crush the
Amalgamated Association. More keen, therefore, than their in-
terest in the points at issue was the belief that if they failed
in this strike, the power, if not the very existence of the union,
would go. This fear accounts for the pertinacity with which
the struggle was fought to the finish and for the deep-seated
bitterness which followed the men's defeat.

The strike began June 30. The Association, which had been
so recently indifferent to the condition of the day men, now realized,
since many of the latter could be put into the skilled positions, that
the strike could not be won without their assistance. A call was
thereupon issued for them to strike, and the day men, with every-
thing to lose and almost nothing to gain, went out too, and

HOMESTEAD AND THE GREAT STRIKE

remained faithful supporters to the end. A committee of fifty
men, called the advisory board, conducted the strike.

Shortly after the trouble began, the company attempted to
bring into the mill some 300 men in charge of Pinkerton detec-
tives. The strikers had feared that the company would do this,
since Mr. Frick had called in the Pinkertons at the Connellsville
coke strike and bloodshed had followed. The detectives started
up the river in boats in the early morning of July 6, and a scout
who had been stationed by the strikers came on horseback to
warn the town. The story of that morning, as it is retold among
the people of Homestead, suggests vividly the ride of Paul Revere
to rouse other insurgents more than a century earlier. Men and
women hurried to the mill, weapons were hunted up and barricades
erected. Which side fired the first shot is still a debated question,
but a miniature battle followed in which seven persons were
killed and others wounded. The Pinkertons finally surrendered,
were brought into the town and later were returned to Pittsburgh.
There are conflicting stories as to the incidents of the day, stories
of bloodshed and cruelty. The one clear fact is that the mob
fury latent in most men was wakened by that first shot. It is
hard to believe that the sober, self-contained workmen who told
me the story fifteen years afterward had been part of the frenzied
crowd on the river bank.

As is so often the case, however, that July morning over-
shadowed in the minds of the public the true character and sig-
nificance of the determined struggle, which under conservative
leadership lasted four or five months. For after the first clash
the question became one of endurance, and though the state
militia were called in no further disturbance of any magnitude
arose. One woman, the owner of a number of small houses, told
me that in the latter part of the strike she rented some of them
to non-union men, but that contrary to her expectation she
experienced no personal annoyance. Quietly, stubbornly, the
men continued the fight. The contributions which poured in
from fellow workmen and the public prevented physical suffering;
sympathetic strikes kept up their courage, as did the difficulty
of the company in finding men to take their places. In the mean-
time the life of the town went on, changed but little by the in-

homestead: the households of a mill town

dustrial conflict. The local papers tell of weddings, of picnics, of
church suppers and of the casual comings and goings of the towns-
people, while in the mill below was being contested, though in a
waiting game, the issue which was to determine in many respects
the future of the village.

Since the whole town was in one way or another dependent
on the mill, the interest even of small merchants and others not
directly concerned was of course intense. While some of the
people appreciated the weak points in the claims of the Amalga-
mated Association, the general feeling was so strong that no
one would express an opinion unfavorable to the union. The
mild tone of the local papers leads one to believe that they did
not reflect the state of the public mind, with its resentment
at the presence of the soldiers and its alternations of hope and
despair as to the outcome of the summer. About the middle of
October the men realized that they had failed, and went back
— those who could get their old jobs — at a wage determined by
the company. A few were refused positions, and many others
who found that their places in the mill had been taken by the
strike breakers had either to take inferior positions or go elsewhere.
The resulting bitterness made itself felt for years in the relation
of the men to the Carnegie Company. When you talk with a
skilled and intelligent man who is still refused work in any mill
of the United States Steel Corporation because of the part he
played in that strike, over fifteen years ago, you realize why the
passions it aroused have not died out. For most of the town,
life resumed its normal course. Newspapers in New Orleans and
St. Paul and San Francisco ceased to discuss Homestead; it drop-
ped back to its place among industrial towns, facing for good
or ill the problems which this changed labor situation created.

Looking back from the vantage ground of the present, one
is impressed by the vital character of the questions at issue. The
particular change in the wage scale which was ostensibly the
point under dispute, was, comparatively speaking, a small matter;
the significant fact is that every cut since has been accepted by
the men without hope and with no effective protest.

There was involved a question of social equity apart from

HOMESTEAD AND THE GREAT STRIKE

whether the union carried its interference in mill administration to
unwarranted lengths, or whether the company had grounds for
adopting its inflexible policy of suppressing any labor organiza-
tions among the men. This question was whether the workmen
in the industry were to profit in the long run by improved and
cheapened processes of production; in other words, was mechani-
cal progress to mean a real increase of prosperity to the com-
munity as the years passed. If the Homestead strike had been
won by the men, the company would have continued to recognize
that settled employes have some claims with respect to the terms
of their employment, and to grant them a voice in the wage
adjustments which from time to time determine what share of
the proceeds of production belongs to labor. It may well be
questioned whether the standards of living for steel employes
would have settled to their present levels.

The union ceased to exist, and since that date those common
factors in employment which circumscribe a man's life, — his hours,
his wages, and the conditions under which he works, — and which
in turn vitally affect the well-being of his family; these he was
to have less and less share in determining.

CHAPTER II
THEMAKE-UP OF THE TOWN

THE strike ended, mill and town continued their rapid growth
until little is now left to suggest the village which in 1870
we saw developing on the farms beside the river. The
changes of the intervening years, however, except for the influx
of the Slavs, have been gradual and unnoticed. Their history is
unwritten, and our real interest lies rather in the present develop-
ment, in the type of town which the great plant and its 7000
employes have created at Homestead. The population is typical
of the newer American industrial centers as distinguished from the
New England village or the western county seat. It is a town
primarily of workingmen — a town of many transients. It is,
moreover, strikingly representative of the two waves of immigra-
tion,— the first, of Teutons and Celts, the later, of Slavs — and of
the great social cleavage between them.

While at the date of this study there were no detailed sta-
tistics of nationalities making up the population, the census of
1900 reported for the borough of Homestead, 4528 native white of
native parents, 3781 native white of foreign parents, 3594 foreign
born white, 640 Negroes, and 11 Chinese; that is, about 36 per
cent of the population was native white of native parents. This
percentage is fairly typical of mill towns in the steel district, as
shown by a comparison with nearby industrial boroughs (Table 2).

Facts obtained as to the birthplace of men employed in the
mill in July, 1907, the greater number of whom live in Homestead,
give with fair accuracy the racial groups represented in the present
foreign born population. Of 6772 employes, 1925, or 28.4 per
cent, were native white, 121 colored, 398 English, 259 Irish,
129 Scotch, 176 German, 3603 Slavs,* and 161 other European

* In this book "Slav" is used as a general term to include Magyars and
Lithuanians, as well as those belonging to the Slavic race. For an exhaustive
and thoroughly interesting account of the immigration to this country from
Austro-Hungary see Balch, Emily Greene: Our Slavic Fellow Citizens. New York,
Charities Publication Committee, 1910.

Drawn by Joseph Stella

Of the Old Time Irish Immigration

THE MAKE-UP OF THE TOWN

TABLE I. — TOTAL POPULATION, AND NUMBER AND PER CENT OF
NATIVE AND FOREIGN BORN IN HOMESTEAD, I9OO

Total
Popula-

Native White
of Native Pa-
rents

Native White
of Foreign Pa-
rents

Foreign Born
White

Colored

tion

Number

Per cent

Number

Percent

Number

Per cent

Number

Per cent

12,554

4528

36.0

378.

30.1

3594

28.6

65,

5-2

TABLE 2. — TOTAL POPULATION, AND PER CENT OF NATIVE WHITE
AND FOREIGN BORN IN FOUR BOROUGHS OF ALLEGHENY
COUNTY, I9OO*

Native

White of

Foreign

Colored

Total
Popu-
lation

Native

Foreign

Born White

Borough

Parents

Num-

Per

Num-

Per

Num-

Per

Num-

Per

ber

cent

ber

cent

ber

cent

ber

cent

Braddock

15654

4887

31.2

5098

32.6

5105

32.6

564

Duquesne

9036

2765

30.6

2628

29.1

3448

38.2

'95

2.2

Millvale

6736

2088

31.0

3056

45-4

1581

22'5

1 1

0.2

Sharpsburg

6842

2766

40.4

2539

37-'

1279

18.7

258

3.8

TABLE 3. — TOTAL EMPLOYES, AND NUMBER AND PER CENT OF
VARIOUS RACIAL GROUPS IN THE HOMESTEAD PLANT, CARNEGIE
STEEL CO., JULY, I907

Total

Number and Per cent of

Em-
ployes

Native
IVbite

English

Irish

Scotch

German

Other
Euro-
peans

Slav

Colored

6772

1925

398

259

129

.76

161

3603

121

1 00.0

28.4

16.6

53-2

1.8

♦Twelfth U. S. Census, 1900.

•3

homestead: the households of a mill town

nationalities. These figures show the absence of Italians as a
factor in the labor situation in the mills, and the predominance
of Slavs, who form over 53 per cent of the total number employed.

As Germans and British tend to amalgamate with the native
whites the community has fallen more or less naturally into two
major groups, — the English-speaking and the Slavs.

The Negroes form a third group, much fewer in numbers,
allied to the first group by a common speech, but resembling the
second in the attitude toward them in the earlier days when
they were looked down upon as intruders of alien blood. In
Homestead, Negroes are not engaged in domestic service as in
most northern cities, but are employed in the mill or in the building
trades. Of those who are now in the mills, some came in the first
instance as strike breakers and have advanced to well-paid
positions. I call to mind especially a man who, starting as a
laborer, is now a roller, the highest skilled of the steel workers.
These men have in the main come to adopt the same standards
as their white neighbors, and are usually treated with genuine
respect by the latter, but there is still some sense of resentment
roused by the success of the Negroes or their pretensions to
gentility. An interesting instance of this attitude came to my
attention. A white woman who had been for many years a
resident of Homestead was especially vexed because a nearby
house had been sold to a Negro. Some weeks later I visited the
wife of this colored property owner, who had been ill, and she
told me feelingly how good her white neighbors had been to her.
She spoke especially of this older resident who had complained
to me, and mentioned how she had brought dainties and finally
helped persuade her to go to the hospital. Thus, though social
distinctions still exist and the colored people have their own
lodges and churches, the more prosperous among them are winning
respect.*

The break between the Slavs and the rest of the community
is on the whole more absolute than that between the whites and

♦There is a totally different class of colored people, who run houses of
ill fame and gambling resorts on Sixth Avenue; a "sporty" element which
is much in evidence and creates for the race an unpleasant notoriety. These
people frequently appear in police courts and form a low element in the town's
life.

THE MAKE-UP OF THE TOWN

the Negroes. Neither in lodge nor in church, nor, with a few
exceptions, in school, do the two mingle. Even their living places
are separated; the Second Ward, except for those who owned
homes there in earlier years, has been largely abandoned to the
newer immigrants. This sharp division, while partly due to the
barrier which differences in language and custom create, is in-
tensified by a feeling of scorn for the newcomers on the part of
the older residents. They are "Hunkies," that is all, and many
an American workman who earns but a few cents a day more
looks upon them with an utter absence of kinship. The more
intelligent Slavs, who desire better things for their people, feel
this lack of understanding keenly, for they realize the handicap
it means in their upward struggle.

The change from the early homogeneous group of workmen
in Homestead is due in part to the fact that the general tide of
immigrants now setting toward the United States comes from the
Slavic countries, and in part to the increasing demand for manual
laborers able to do the hard, unskilled work in the mills. This
heavy labor the English-speaking group is now less willing to
perform and here the Slav finds his opportunity.

The population of the town has also been affected by the
fact that the steel industry calls for the work of men only. In
the census for 1900, we find that of the 12,554 people in Homestead
borough, 7,141, or 56.9 per cent, were males, while in Allegheny
County as a whole the males formed 52 per cent, and in the
entire United States but 51.2. The preponderance of males was
even greater among the immigrant population in Homestead,
constituting 63.4 per cent of the foreign born. Furthermore, of
the men employed in the mill, 35.3 per cent are unmarried, though
only 10.2 per cent are under twenty. The large transient body
of single men, as we shall see in Chapter XI, constitutes a serious
menace to home life among the Slavs. Other transients are also
numerous, and their presence lessens the effective civic force of
the community. Among them are many young college graduates
employed in the mechanical departments of the mill, who do not
consider themselves permanent residents. My acquaintance with
those met in two boarding houses in Homestead showed me that
their interest in the town was casual. Few take any active share

homestead: the households of a mill town

either in local politics or in movements to improve local condi-
tions.

The families of the English-speaking workers, however, are
bound together by common interests and common ties. They
live near enough to see each other easily, their lives are molded
by similar forces and as a result a more than usual degree of sym-
pathy exists among them. This is shown perhaps most strikingly
in the great kindnesses of neighbor to neighbor in times of distress.
Such acts are not looked upon as charity. If a man is ill, the men
in his mill take up a collection for his needs as friend for friend,
knowing that when the need is theirs he will return the kindness.
A man told me of his experience when he was laid up four months
with rheumatism. He had begun to worry about bills, for when
pay day came no pay was due him. But his "buddy" walked
in with an envelope containing a sum of money. Later, when
this was exhausted, the men made another gift. He accepted it
very simply, almost as a matter of course, the thought of similar
gifts he had made, and others he would make, keeping him from
feeling any sense of obligation. This sense of community of
interest I found helped greatly to strengthen the fraternal organ-
izations.

In the main, then, this is a town of wage-earners. None of
those extremes of wealth and social position that exist in cities
are found here. There is a small social circle composed of business
and professional men and the officials in the mill. As some of
the most skilled workmen earn more than the minor officials
over them, the line between workmen and superintendents is
not a sharp one. In the days of small industries the mill owner
lived in the mill town, maintaining there his social as well as
economic leadership, stimulating its activities and playing his
part in movements for its well-being. But the individual mill
owner is a thing of the past. Stockholders have taken his place.
They are scattered all over the country and know their property
only as a source of dividends, giving in return neither interest
nor stimulus to the workers; and managers and superintendents,
however public spirited, shift and change.

Drawn by Joseph Stella

JfrA-

Head: Slavic Day Laborer

THE MAKE-UP OF THE TOWN

These are some of the changes in the social make-up of the
borough which have come with that business development which
has made the Homestead mills part of a national industry, and
with that labor policy which has opened the doors to all comers
and has tolerated no control of the situation by the men on the
ground. Under such conditions of growth it is well to ask how
adequately the physical difficulties of building a town on the river
bank have been mastered; what has been the development of civic
and political institutions to meet the needs of the changing com-
munity; and what the economic development of the borough,
outside of the great industry itself .

My inquiry into these things has been limited intentionally
to certain aspects of the situation as reflected in the household
life.

We have seen that industrial factors — easy access to ores,
water, transportation, etc. — made Homestead an ideal mill site.
As a site for a town it is not ideal.* The river in hollowing its
way through the hills sometimes left a narrow rim along its banks,
but more often the descent to the water's edge is abrupt. The
larger level space at a sharp bend was chosen as the site for the
mill. As the plant was at first small the buildings did not monop-
olize the entire river front, and the low ground then open to
the river furnished ample room for the homes of the workers.
The mill, however, grew rapidly and spread over more and more of
the level, till now its buildings stretch for a mile along the water.
In its growth it has encroached on some of the territory already
occupied by houses. The last to go were the rows of little shanties
inside the mill grounds erected to shelter the strike breakers of
1892, — a settlement called Potterville, after the superintendent
in charge during the strike. These houses were demolished some
four years ago and the tenants had to move to the already
crowded districts just outside. This congestion, due to the desire
of the employes for homes near their work, is increased by the
steepness of the hill behind, a weary climb after the labor of the
day. As the site of the mill was extended up the river, houses
were built further along the hillside and also along the ravines
where the slope was more gradual. In this way the town pushed

* See map, facing page 1 .
I7

homestead: the households of a mill town

out beyond the narrow triangle with its base on the river, which
formed the original borough. Instead, however, of extending
the boundaries of Homestead to cover this new territory two
additional boroughs were created, Munhall on the east and West
Homestead on the west. Consequently we have the curious
anomaly of a town that is a social and industrial unit parceled
off into three politically independent boroughs.

Munhall, the eastern part of the hill, was originally sepa-
rated from Homestead by a ravine, and was largely the property
of John Munhall, one of the oldest residents of the town. Ad-
joining was the site of the Pittsburgh City Poor Farm. It was
here that the state militia were quartered in 1892. Soon after the
strike, the property was bought up by the Carnegie Land Company,
now a constituent part of the United States Steel Corporation.
Before any lots were offered for sale, streets were laid out, sewers,
running water and electricity put in, and houses planned
and erected. The majority of the larger houses were sold
to mill employes, and those that the company still owns can
only be rented by them. In 1901, on application of the property
owners, the borough was incorporated.* It included not only
the land owned by the Carnegie Land Company, but three-
quarters of the mill property itself. Munhall thus forms a geo-
graphical triangle similar to Homestead, the mill occupying the
base on the river and the residence portion lying on the hill
above.

Beyond Munhall lies the "Hollow," a deep ravine with a
meandering stream at the bottom and with irregular rows of
houses, often hardly more than shanties, on either hand. Forty-
four acres of land hang upon the sides of the two abrupt hills.
The land is owned by the John Munhall Estate; and the 250
frame, box-like houses, many of them no larger than two rooms,

♦This action was taken under a provision of the state constitution that
any section of a township may, with the approval of the county court, be formed
into a borough on the vote of a majority of its electors. The site of the Carne-
gie steel plant at Homestead was formerly part of Mifflin township and the town-
ship collected all the tax. It was found that the tax rate on other parts of the
township was being reduced to a minimum while the bulk of the tax receipts
coming from the steel plant was being used in rural parts and very little spent
in the neighborhood of the works. The new borough of Munhall was organized
and the taxes paid by the works were thereafter expended within its boundaries.

THE MAKE-UP OF THE TOWN

are owned mostly by unskilled laborers in the mills. The Munhall
Estate lets the land upon which the workers build their houses
on ten-year leases. Like the Cabbage Patch in which the Wiggses
lived, it is a "queer neighborhood where ramshackle cottages
play hop-scotch" over the crooked ditch and up the hillsides.
The property is not surveyed into streets, there being only one
public thoroughfare, an unpaved dirt road running lengthwise of
the hollow; and, along most of the road, the owner seems in
building his house to have "faced it any way his fancy prompted."
The borough has installed street lights along this road, and has
placed perhaps half a dozen upon the private property of the
estate; but there are no sewers nor other public improvements.

A branch line of street cars running through the Hollow
connects with a rather promising suburb called Homeville, built
on the hill slopes at the end of the ravine. Another branch line
runs straight back from the river over the top of the hill to Home-
stead Park and Lincoln Place, suburbs attractively situated on
high ground. Whitaker, which adjoins Munhall to the east,
has a population of about 2000, largely wage-earners. As these
men work in the mill, and their families shop in Homestead,
they might fairly be included in the Homestead census. Hays,
toward Pittsburgh, is another borough that is at least in a meas-
ure a part of the Homestead community.

Nearer by, formed by the extension of Homestead to the
west, in much the same way that Munhall was created to the east,
is West Homestead. Disregarding the outlying settlements,
these three boroughs may be said to make up the fairly compact
but politically divided community which has been gathered to-
gether by the Homestead mill. Though West Homestead con-
tains less wealth than Munhall, it includes the plant of the Mesta
Machine Company, the only other considerable industry in the
town. Each of these separate boroughs elects its own officials,
makes its own ordinances, and provides through taxation for its
own needs. Through this division the taxable properties of the
great industries are separated from the central borough, which
has by far the largest population and which, with the exception of
Munhall Hollow, includes the sections where the poorest workers
live. On this point, I can quote from Shelby M. Harrison, a

homestead: the households of a mill town

colleague in the work of the Pittsburgh Survey, who compares
the fiscal situation in Homestead and Munhall as follows:

The mill-worker resident in Homestead is affected by
the tax question from at least two directions. First, over
three-fourths of the mill property is located in Munhall
borough where, except in 1907, the tax rate has never
been over half that in Homestead, the borough in which a
majority of the mill workers live. In 1907, property in
Munhall paid a total borough and school tax of 8\ mills
on the dollar, while in the same year Homestead property
paid 15 mills.* This artificial division into separate taxing
districts of a community which is in practically all senses a

TABLE 4. — HOMESTEAD AND MUNHALL TAXES, I907

Assessed

Valuation of

Property

MlLLAGE

Boroughs

Total Tax

Munhall ....
Homestead

$6,957,630
9, 1 20,765

4f
7

8}
»5

? 57,400.4s
136,81 1.48

Total ....

$ 1 6,078,395

$194,211.93

unit, however that division may have come about, relieves
the Steel Corporation from much of its local responsibility
as a property holder. Its relief means a heavier burden
upon the residents of Homestead; some one must build
and maintain schools and public works, protect person and
property, and support local government. The burden is
further accentuated by the tendency among assessors, com-
mon in all industrial centers, to value small properties at
much nearer their full market value than they do large
properties — especially large manufacturing plants. Con-
servative estimates by persons familiar with the situation

* In 1908, the rates were, Munhall, 8i mills, Homestead, 16 mills; in 1909,
Munhall, 8J mills, Homestead, 18 mills. In 1910, with no statement or explana-
tion to the taxpayers, the Homestead borough council jumped the borough millage
from 10 to 13. The school tax for 1910 is 9 mills, the total local rate thus reaching
22 mills, or 2.2 per cent of the assessed value of property, a rate 2} times that in
Munhall.

THE MAKE-UP OF THE TOWN

indicate that the mill property in both boroughs is not
assessed upon more than 30 per cent of its actual value,
whereas Homestead residence property will average an
assessed valuation equal to 80 per cent of its market value.
Thus, in reality, the tax rate upon much the greater part of
the mill property must be more than cut in two for pur-
poses of comparison.. A rate of 8\ mills on a 30 per cent
valuation is equal to 2.5 mills on full valuation; and 15
mills on an 80 per cent valuation equals 12 mills on full
value; so that the real tax rates closely approximate 2.5
mills for the corporation against 12 mills, practically five
times as much, for the everyday Homestead taxpayer. The
same percentages would hold with respect to county taxes.

On the other hand, if this social and industrial unit
were made a municipal unit, then instead of Munhall paying
a tax of 8£ mills on the dollar, as in 1907, and Homestead
paying 15 mills on the dollar, the united boroughs could
receive the same total revenues as before by paying 12 mills
upon the same valuations. This would reduce the tax rate
for the Homestead householder by three mills, or 20 per
cent less than his present rates. It would raise the tax rate
on a majority of the corporation property 3! mills, or 45 per
cent. Raising the assessed valuation of the property of
the steel company to the general level would reduce the
householders' rates still further.

Second, the Homestead borough government aggra-
vates this heavy burden of taxation instead of lightening it.
In direct contrast to conditions in Munhall, where the
influence of the Carnegie Steel Company practically domin-
ates borough action and has made the local government
efficient and without suspicion of graft, an appreciable part
of Homestead's public funds has been squandered upon
enterprises that have failed, the cost of improvements is
excessive, and the city's finances are looked after in an
utterly haphazard fashion. In 1907-8, $95,000 was out-
standing as delinquent taxes — mucn over half the sum
annually assessed in taxes for the borough. Although the
borough bears a big debt burden, and although its bonds
stipulate that a sinking fund must be established for their
retirement, no sinking fund has existed for a number of
years. Yet borrowing is resorted to with small concern.
In 1907 the bonded debt amounted to $441,500, and the
current debt to $16,933, — $458,000 in all.* The borough

* In March, 1910, the borough was $621,776.03 in debt, — certainly near, if
not actually beyond, the limit of its borrowing privilege, — and was arranging to

homestead: the households of a mill town

has been selling bonds from time to time to pay current
expenses — a broad, easy, spendthrift course, paved with
engraved promises, which, if persisted in, must lead to
ultimate loss of credit and bankruptcy."

The mill's escape, then, from the local government burden,
and the town's aggravation of that burden, come down on the
families of working people, either as house-owners or as payers of
the high rents current in the borough.

HOMESTEAD AS A CIVIC UNIT
It is with Homestead borough in 1907-8 that this household
study is primarily concerned, and in judging its public activities
we must consider the limitations of borough resources noted, and
the state restrictions upon borough authority, coupled with the
industrial conditions which, as we shall see, circumscribe the
effective citizenship of the mill workers. These have had a part
in the failures in self-government which have characterized this
community, along with many others in America. For while the
town has grown steadily both in population and territory, civic
interest and the well-being resulting from sound political organiza-
tion have not kept pace with this growth. The school board and
the board of health have the respect of the town, and men of
standing are willing to serve on them. But the borough legisla-
ture, a council of fifteen members, has been controlled in Home-
stead by the type of small politician to be found in office wherever
wholesale liquor dealers dominate politics and where the local
government is used merely as a feeder for a state political machine.*
Townspeople with whom I talked had apparently ceased to expect
intelligent action on their part. Serious charges of dishonesty in

float ^45,000 additional bonds. The borough clerk's published estimates of muni-
cipal assets total only I50q.874.28 — over $ 100,000 less than its total indebtedness.
In authorizing the new bonds a resolution was adopted providing for the main-
tenance of a sinking fund in the future. Homestead borough's system of public
accounting is neither a system nor accounting; the borough treasurer was not only
without a personal bond for several months recently, but he allowed several thou-
sand dollars of certificates to go to protest while the books of the clerk showed that
the treasurer had money of the borough in his possession sufficient to pay them.
Some years the borough auditors have not audited the accounts of the treasurer
giving as a reason that the treasurer kept no books.

* John F. Cox, the Republican "boss" of the borough, was in 1908 speaker
of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, which has long since ceased to
represent the people of Pennsylvania.

Photo by Iline

"The Mansion '"

The company-owned home of the Superintendent. The purpose in providing it
is, of course, to make it practicable for the responsible executive to be within call
of the works.

Photo by Tline

The Street

Homestead's only outdoor playground in 1907. These children, through no
will of their own, live within sound of the mill. There was as yet no provision for
their simplest recreational needs in the scheme of things laid out by their elders.

THE MAKE-UP OF THE TOWN

awarding bids for a garbage plant and of bribery in connection
with other matters had been brought against members in 1904.
While the testimony given at the investigation leaves no doubt
in the mind of the reader that there had been crooked dealings,
it was suppressed and led to no action.

Apart from these allegations of dishonesty, the council has
acquired a reputation for general inefficiency. It has been slow
to insist on sanitary regulations necessitated by the increasing
density of population. The first forward step from the primitive
sanitation of village days was taken the year after the strike, when
the streets were paved, and sewers and town water put in. A
large percentage of the houses, especially the cheaper ones,
nevertheless had neither running water nor toilets in them in
1907-8.*

The water supply of the borough is drawn from the Monon-
gahela River. This stream is contaminated by the sewage of
many small towns, as well as of two cities, McKeesport and Con-
nellsville, the former with a population of about 40,000 and the
latter of 10,000. In addition the water, some of which drains
from the mines, has been used over and over for the processes of
steel and coke manufacture, and is impregnated with chemicals,
especially sulphuric acid. One Homestead resident said, "No
respectable microbe would live in it." In this probably lies the
explanation of why the typhoid death rate in Homestead has been
low (6 deaths in 1907) in contrast to Pittsburgh. While these
chemicals may destroy the bacteria to a considerable extent, they
are not in themselves ingredients of good drinking water. This
water was formerly pumped directly from the river into the
reservoir, but in 1904-5 a number of wells were driven at a short
distance from the river, with the idea that the water draining into
them would thus be gravel-filtered before it was pumped into the
reservoir. I was told, however, by a physician and a town official
that these wells do not supply enough water, and that when they
give out the reservoir is again filled directly from the stream.
After this plant was constructed the water was analyzed by the

* I am told that there has been a marked increase in these sanitary improve-
ments since. (See Appendix VI. p. 222. Report, Homestead Board of Health
For comment on the Pittsburgh Survey, see p. 224.)

homestead: the households of a mill town

state board of health and reported safe for drinking. When I
first went to live in Homestead I attempted to use water that had
been boiled but not filtered, and found it exceedingly distasteful.
Local physicians forbid people to drink the borough water unless
it has been boiled and filtered, and many refuse to use it at all
for drinking purposes.

Most residents seemed to accept such a situation as a matter
of course. Until recently conditions in Pittsburgh and McKees-
port have been equally bad,* so that Homestead had no compelling
nearby example to make its people realize that a satisfactory
water system was possible. Instead of attempting to improve
the town supply, many have drawn their drinking water from wells.
No ordinances govern the location of these wells. In the courts
of Slavic dwellings they are often near drains which carry waste
water to the privy vaults, and when the pavements are broken
this water must leak into the wells with but little filtration.
Moreover, the board of health does not inspect the wells nor
analyze the water from them, except at private expense. One
outbreak of typhoid was traced directly to a well which had been
used by a number of families because the water was supposed to
be particularly good.

Not only is the quality of the water supplied by the borough

of Homestead poor, but there is no ordinance requiring running

water in tenements. The borough clerk does not know how many

houses are without it since he charges the water tax to each property

holder in a lump sum with no indication as to the number of

families supplied. The landlords, who seem to be influential with

the council, naturally oppose such a requirement, and because

of a shortage in dwelling houses have been under no pressure

to put in water taps in order to rent the older or cheaper buildings.

The men with larger wages and more influence move into houses

which at least have running water in the kitchens. Immigrant

laborers continue to carry water in and out from a common

hydrant in the court. In different sections, also, I found young

American families who had no running water in the house, and

* Munhall borough today purchases filtered water from the South Pitts-
burgh Water Company. McKeesport treats and mechanically filters its water;
Pittsburgh has built huge sand filtration beds. These plants have been put
into operation within the last three years.

THE MAKE-UP OF THE TOWN

who complained that they could not afford to move to better
quarters. But though the husbands had votes and had friends
with votes, it apparently never occurred to them to attempt to
secure what they wanted through public action.

More serious is the indifference of many of the residents,
including the officials, to the evils resulting from unflushed
privy vaults. Though a borough ordinance requires that vaults
be connected with the sewer, it demands no adequate means of
flushing them. Physicians felt that conditions in the Second
Ward near the mill were so bad that the council should pass an
ordinance requiring that all closets be placed within the house
and properly flushed; yet no steps were taken to secure it. There
are, furthermore, no building laws, except one which requires that
buildings on the business streets shall be fireproof. In regulating
overcrowding or other unsanitary conditions the board of health
has authority to act in cases which can be classed as nuisances.*
Under the authority thus granted it has insisted in many instances
upon the cleansing of vaults, the destruction of particularly un-
sanitary closets, and upon turning some of the boarders out of
especially overcrowded tenements. Thus, in 1907 the sanitary
officers reported that they had compelled the cleaning of 848
yards and 176 cellars, and the opening of 254 closets; forced
owners to abandon 42 outside closets and place new ones in houses;
had 201 stopped sewers cleaned and 48 new sewer connections
made; removed 64 boarders from overcrowded houses and com-
pelled the cleaning of 48 rooms found in unsanitary condition
and the windows of 161 rooms in residences and of 12 in schools.
There are, however, no municipal regulations as to overcrowding,
ventilation or sanitation that would create specific standards
which all property owners might be compelled to meet.

The death rate for 1907, 24 per 1000, indicated the need of

♦Borough Ordinance: — Whatever is dangerous to human life or health;
whatever renders the air or food or water or other drinks unwholesome; and
whatever building, erection or part or cellar thereof is overcrowded or not
provided with adequate means of ingress and egress, or is not sufficiently
supported, ventilated, sewered, drained, cleaned or lighted, are declared to
be nuisances, and to be illegal, and every person having aided in creating or
contributing to the same, or who may support, continue or retain any of them,
shall be deemed guilty of a violation of this ordinance, and also be liable for
the expense of the abatement and remedy thereof.

homestead: the households of a mill town

further sanitary precautions. Of the 416 deaths, 94, or 22.6 per
cent, were from pneumonia and tuberculosis, and 65, or 15.6 per
cent, were from marasmus, cholera infantum and convulsions.
That is, 38.2 per cent of the total number of deaths were from
diseases closely connected with lack of sufficient air, good food
and intelligent care of children.

Altogether, the public seems to take little active interest
in the situation. The burgess,* in 1908, reported that the results
of an investigation of overcrowding in the lodging houses, which
he himself had made, aroused no general interest.

Inefficient as the local government may be in dealing with
sanitary problems, the general run of landlords give no evidence of
a greater sense of responsibility for solving them. This is illustrated
in the conditions permitted by the big private estate in the adjoin-
ing borough of Munhall. The "run" in Munhall Hollow amounts to
an open sewer bringing down filth and debris from other settle-
ments farther up the valley through which its tributaries pass.
In the hot summer months, the stench becomes almost unbearable,
making it frequently necessary to haul lime in by the wagon load,
to be dumped along the bed of the creek. When the rains are
heavy in the spring, the valley is often so flooded that the water
fills many of the cellars and even comes in much above the first
floors of the houses at the lower end of the hollow.

It may be well to note how this peculiar form of landlordism
affects the home life of a considerable group of mill employes. The
system of leasing followed by the Munhall Estate makes it more or
less easy to shift responsibility for the continuance of primitive con-
ditions in the Hollow. By the terms of the short-time leases, the
tenants agree to pay a stipulated land rent, and all taxes and water
rates in addition. The local rule is that public improvements, such
as paving, sewers, etc., shall be assessed one-third against the bor-
ough and two-thirds against abutting property owners; and natur-
ally improvements are not made unless there is a demand among
property owners for them. Since the agreement of the tenants to
pay taxes includes the two-thirds of the cost of public improvements,
they do not urge the building of public works which will benefit the
Munhall Estate and might only tend to raise rents every ten years.

* The burgess is the chief executive officer of the borough.
26

THE MAKE-UP OF THE TOWN

The agent, on the other hand, maintains" that the houses do
not belong to the Estate, and that it is not responsible for bad
conditions inside a tenant's lot and house; the land rents are
low and the tenant should take enough interest in his home to
improve it. Furthermore, the most serious sanitary problem, as
the Estate sees it, and the one to be dealt with first, is the brook,
both when it keeps within its banks and when it overflows them.
The agent feels that this is not even a Munhall borough problem;
for since the stream and its tributaries drain a wide area, the state
of Pennsylvania is best fitted to act and the responsibility is laid
at its door, and until it acts other things must wait.

Munhall Borough in turn clears its skirts of responsibility
for the Hollow on the ground that the land is private property
and that its condition is the concern of the Munhall Estate.
The borough has not yet regarded the condition of the Hollow
as a possible menace to the health of the whole community.

Meanwhile, a very appreciable proportion of the residents
of Munhall, those with the scantiest resources of health and pocket-
book, live in this damp, odorous gap between the hills, contending
with disease, floods and an occasional fire.

To turn from questions of public health to those of good
order, we find the situation if anything less promising. The
borough police force has for years failed to enforce the liquor laws.
The man who was chief in 1908 formerly ran a gambling place
under the guise of a club,* and while he was held to be capable, it
was commonly reported that he owed his position to the liquor
interests. I was told that the numerous "speakeasies" were left
undisturbed as long as they bought from the wholesalers in power.
In Munhall there are no saloons; in Homestead, over 50, eight
being in a single block on Eighth Avenue next the mill entrance.
A Homesteader summed up the situation in this way: "We have
at least 65 saloons, 10 wholesale liquor stores, a number of beer

* In 1908 this place, the Colonial Club, was closed, and a new chief of police
was elected. There is also a new burgess, Thomas L. Davis, superintendent of a
mill in the Jones and Laughlin Steel Co., the largest independent plant in Pitts-
burgh. He is a Welshman, but has lived in Homestead for many years. A general
toning up of the police situation has accompanied his administration. Moreover,
the Taxpayers' League, which was organized to carry on a good government cam-
paign, succeeded in electing one member of the Council, M. P. Schooley, a man of
personal independence and civic spirit.

homestead: the households of a mill town

agents, innumerable 'speakeasies,' and a dozen or more drug
stores," — and this in a community of 25,000.

In common with the whole industrial district, Homestead
suffers from a system of aldermanic courts which prevails through-
out Pennsylvania, and is ill devised to serve other than rural com-
munities. The system is especially open to petty tyranny and
corruption in dealing with an immigrant population. All misde-
meanors are tried before local "squires" or justices of the peace,
who can impose fines or short terms of imprisonment, and can also
act in civil suits involving amounts of less than $300. These jus-
tices and the constables who serve under them are elected by the
voters of the borough and serve for a period of five years. They
receive no salary but are paid certain fees; for example, the fee
for issuing a warrant is fifty cents and the same sum for a hearing
in a criminal case or for taking bail in such a case. The constable
receives one dollar for executing a warrant or for conveying the
defendant to jail. These men are often uneducated, with no
training in the law, and dependent for income on the number
of arrests made. Obviously, many fail to comprehend the impor-
tance of dealing equitably with minor offenders. Of the cases
of disorderly conduct reported in the newspapers from January
1 to March 31, 1908, there were 121 in which sentence was pro-
nounced. Of these, 80 were either discharged, or fined costs or
$1.00 and costs. Ten out of the 121 were sent to the jail or
workhouse, and four of these were sent at their own request
because they had no home to go to. Such treatment by magis-
trates and constables of course has little deterrent effect.

On one point the borough government cannot act because
of its legislative limitations. In dealing with disorderly houses,
for example, the owners can be arraigned only on a charge of
disorderly conduct, for which a small fine or a short period in the
workhouse is the maximum penalty. No local action can be
brought against them on a criminal charge. In 1907 the district
attorney of Allegheny County raided a number of houses in Home-
stead. Without his co-operation, however, the borough is unable
to take thoroughgoing measures to eradicate them.

The limitations of borough autonomy are brought out
in even sharper relief in its relation to an outside corporation, the

Douhi.k Gkaoe CROSSING Near thk Heart of Homestead

Photo by Hine

An Unpaved Alley

THE MAKE-UP OF THE TOWN

railroad. The ordinance, for example, which requires that the
speed of trains inside borough limits shall be limited to six miles
an hour, is almost totally disregarded. One fast train which goes
through late in the evening, makes but little reduction in speed,
merely sending out a prolonged shriek of warning to the passer-by.
Two railroads run through Homestead parallel to the main street,
one two blocks and one three blocks from it. Many children on
their way to school must cross the tracks, and the same is true of
all the traffic going from the main street to Pittsburgh. Yet until
1908 the crossings, all level with the street, were without gates, and
flagmen stationed at them left at 6 p. m.* The Pennsylvania
courts had declared that a borough has no power to enact ordi-
nances affecting outside corporations, can neither enforce a speed
limit, nor require a railroad to put safety gates at the crossings
nearest its business centers.

HOMESTEAD'S ECONOMIC STATUS
Enough has been said to indicate that politically the citizens
of Homestead have not succeeded in creating an altogether
wholesome sanitary or civic environment for their homes. Of
equal influence upon household life is the economic development
of a community of 25,000 people. Here we find the dominance
of the one industry and the nearness of Homestead to Pittsburgh
important factors.

Homestead is now the market for the three boroughs and
also for the outlying districts. Since the branch car lines into
the surrounding country have made it possible for women living
back from Homestead to shop here, the demand for good local
stores has increased. The main thoroughfare, Eighth Avenue, is
a typical two- and three-story business street with banks, real estate
offices, numerous butcher shops and bakeries, grocery and furnish-
ing stores, the latter displaying modish garments on sale for cash or
"credit." A low white building bears the imposing sign "Home-

*The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie tracks (New York Central System) have
since been guarded with gates; the tracks of the Pittsburgh, Virginia and
Charleston (Pennsylvania lines) are without gates. Gatemen and flagmen alike
are as heretofore off duty at night. See Appendix VI I, p. 233, for list of casualties.

homestead: the households of a mill town

stead's Department Stores." At frequent intervals saloons and
nickelodeons offer entertainment after their kind. The few
shabby looking hotels, obviously making more money from their
bars than from their rooms, are characteristic of any town so near
a great city. The row of shops offers all the necessities of life and
the housekeeper need not journey to the city unless she wishes.
Pittsburgh, to be sure, is near. It takes only fifteen minutes on
the railroad and forty-five on a street car, and as the fare in the
latter case is only five cents, many women make their more im-
portant purchases from the greater variety of goods and the bar-
gains offered by the big stores. For the most part, however,
they rely on the local dealers.

Business interests have not adequately met certain other
needs of the town, notably the provisions for amusement. These
are meagre and in winter monotonous and not inspiriting. In
summer opportunities for relaxation are afforded by two parks
owned by the street railway company, each situated within a
five-cent fare of the town. On the line to the suburb Lincoln
Place is Homestead Park. Here is a baseball ground which a
league of business men utilize for games after business hours;
swings, roller skating and a dancing pavilion offer their attractions
to the young. Kennywood Park, on the hills beyond Homestead
toward Duquesne, is the liveliest outdoor pleasure ground within
reach of Pittsburgh. It is the popular place for large picnics.
There is, too, a small park on the hill in Homestead which was
given to the town by Mr. Henry C. Frick. It is attractively
laid out in lawns and flower beds and offers a refreshing glimpse
of green to the passer-by. With these parks and the numerous
trolley lines into the country, the needs of summer recreation
are fairly provided for, but, as has been said, when winter comes
people must return to a limited range of amusements. The
number and character of these are affected by the nearness of
Pittsburgh. People with leisure or those who desire a better
class of entertainment naturally prefer to attend lectures,
concerts and theatres in the city, where they can have the
best. Most towns of the size of Homestead have a local
theatre where fairly good companies come for a one-night
stand. In Homestead, public amusements, aside from the enter-

THE MAKE-UP OF THE TOWN

tainments offered by the Carnegie Library, have been limited
largely to skating rinks and nickelodeons.

Of the business enterprises, those which doubtless most
closely affect the lives of the residents are the real estate com-
panies. Real estate, except in Munhall, is largely in the hands
of local firms, who recognize that they have a definite part in
building up the town and who take a genuine pride in it. By
making it possible for those with small incomes to buy houses
and by creating a sense of confidence through fair dealing (such
as considerateness when purchasers strike hard times), the real
estate men have helped to increase the number of house-owners.
Even in this form of enterprise, in which the business life of Home-
stead is at its best, the resources of the community have not been
sufficient to meet the demands of its growth. Houses have not
been built fast enough, and in 1907 rents were high and people
found difficulty in securing suitable homes.

The town's lack of economic self-dependence is serious and
fundamental. A large machine manufactory and the steel mill
employ practically all the inhabitants except those who provide
for the needs of the workers. Financially, therefore, Homestead
is almost entirely dependent on the outsiders who own these indus-
tries,— non-residents who for the most part lack any interest in
the future development of the town as distinguished from the
mill. Some few may make gifts, — even notable ones, as in the case
of the park, the library and the manual training school, — and
small building loans may be granted employes; but the profits
of the industries are not in any large sense re-invested in the
town.

The setting of the average Homestead household is now
fairly complete before us. On the one hand is the inexorable mill,
offering wages and work under such conditions as it pleases;
on the other is a town politically failing to maintain a sound
environment for its inhabitants and not possessed of independent
business resources sufficient to serve them.

It may well be questioned whether, with labor organization
among the working people, the civic conditions would today be
any better than they are. Democracy has pretty much the same

homestead: the households of a mill town

weaknesses in small cities as in large. Certain it is, however, that
the employers in Homestead who have assumed entire authority
within the mill gates, have not assumed positive responsibilities
toward the well-being of the community which has grown up out-
side them. And of the indirect and too often negative influences
of the industry upon the normal life of the community, there are,
as we shall see, many evidences.

In reviewing the relations of the mill to its employes in the
first chapter, I pointed out that the strike, which shut the men
off from any part in the terms of their work, left them still two
vantage grounds from which they could control much that entered
into everyday living, — the town and the home. We now see how
and where the town fails to create those civic and sanitary con-
ditions which should make for mental and physical efficiency.
The problem then becomes largely one of the home. It is in the
individual household, supported on the customary wages paid
by the mill, that we must seek the meaning of life in Homestead.

PART II
THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING HOUSEHOLDS

CHAPTER III

WORK, WAGES, AND THE COST OF
LIVING

IF YOU are near the mill in the late afternoon you will see a
procession, an almost steady stream of men, each carrying
the inevitable bucket, hurrying towards the great buildings
for the night's work. A little later the tide turns and back come
the day men, walking slowly and wearily towards home and
supper.

Thus the life of the town keeps time with the rhythm of the
mill. This is brought out also by the way the town reckons dates
from the year of the great strike; by the trend of its development,
conditioned by dependence upon one industrial enterprise owned
by outsiders; and most clearly of all by the part the mill work
plays in the lives of the men themselves.

While I shall not attempt to go into the technique of steel
making, the general process can be stated in a few words. The
crude iron brought to Homestead in huge ladles from the "Carrie"
blast furnaces across the river, is taken to the open-hearth de-
partment where it is put into the furnaces, mixed with scrap iron,
ore, and certain chemicals, and brought to a melting heat. The
open-hearth furnaces are then tapped and the metal is poured
into ingot molds to cool. As the steel is needed for use the ingots
are reheated and go to the "rolls," ponderous and wonderful
machines, which turn out steel rails, sheets of plate for war vessels,
beams for constructing skyscrapers.

The conditions under which the work is carried on seem to
an outsider fairly intolerable. The din in the great vaulted sheds
makes speech hard. Men who have worked near the engines,
though their organs of hearing remain in physically good condi-
tion, sometimes become almost oblivious to ordinary sound.
Some work where the heat is intense; and before the open doors

homestead: the households of a mill town

of furnaces full of white-hot metal they must wear smoked glasses
to temper the glare. This heat, exhausting in summer, makes a
man in winter doubly susceptible to the cold without. While for
the men directing the processes the physical exertion is often not
great, most of the laborers perform heavy manual toil. And
everywhere is the danger of accident from constantly moving
machinery, from bars of glowing steel, from engines moving along
the tracks in the yard. The men, of course, grow used to these
dangers, but a new peril lies in the carelessness that results from
such familiarity, for human nature cannot be eternally on guard;
men would be unable to do their work if they became too cautious.
The nature of the work, with the heat and its inherent
hazard, makes much of it exhausting. Yet these men for the most
part keep it up twelve hours a day. It is uneconomical to have
the plant shut down. In order that the mills may run practically
continuously, the twenty-four hours is divided between two shifts.
The greater number of men employed in making steel (as distinct
from the clerical staff) work half of the time at night, the usual
arrangement being for a man to work one week on the day and
the next on the night shift. At the request of the men, the night
turn is made longer, so that they can have the full evening to
themselves the other week. Their hours on the day turn, there-
fore, are from 7 a. m. to 5:30 p. m.; this leaves thirteen and
one-half hours for the night shift. In certain departments the
regular processes are continued straight through Sunday and the
crews work the full seven days out of seven; this is the case, for
instance, in the blast furnaces, such as the Carrie group which
are practically a part of the Homestead plant. The officials
claimed in 1908 that in the rolling mills only necessary labor, such
as repairing, was done on Sunday. Yet my colleague, Mr. Fitch,
estimated that for Allegheny County as a whole one steel worker
out of five worked seven days in a week. Moreover, a majority
of the men have to be on duty either Saturday night or Sunday
night, thus breaking into the day of rest.*

* Mechanics, and day laborers in the yards work ten hours a day. For a
full discussion of the extent of twelve-hour and Sunday work see Fitch, John A.:
The Steel Workers, a companion volume in the series of The Pittsburgh Survey,
p. 166 ff. For recent action of the United States Steel Corporation curtailing
some kinds of Sunday work, see Appendix VIII, p. 236.

WORK, WAGES, AND THE COST OF LIVING

These are the demands which the mill makes on the Home-
stead men. Even the details of family life depend on whether " the
mister" is working day turn or night turn; and the long shifts
determine the part the steel worker plays in his household and
also in his community. Financially, all time is marked off by
the fortnightly "pay Friday." On that night stores are open all
the evening. The streets are filled with music, and the German
bands go from saloon to saloon reaping a generous harvest when
times are good. Beggars besiege the gates of the mill bearing
pathetic signs, " I am injured and blind — my eyes were destroyed
by hot steel," and the full pocketbook is opened. It is the night
for settling scores, and the bills which have accumulated for two
weeks are paid and a fresh household account opened.

The influence of mill work upon the home is most direct of
all through the wages themselves, since wages, by limiting ex-
penditures, set bounds to the attainment of a family's ideals.

As a means of interpreting the household life of Homestead,
therefore, I studied the everyday life of families who represented
different earning and racial groups in the town's population.
Ninety of the families visited kept a detailed account of all pur-
chases for four weeks or more. The inquiry was not, however,
primarily statistical, but rather a study at first hand of family
life. It was not easy to become acquainted with the mill employes
since there were no agencies, such as settlements or trade unions,
to put a stranger confidentially in touch with them. Introduc-
tions, secured mainly from clergymen, made it possible, however,
to approach people, and paved the way for more familiar relation-
ships as the weeks went on. Suspicion was often aroused and
some refused to assist in the investigation. Keeping personal
accounts is arduous (many of us have abandoned the praiseworthy
habit), and it was not surprising that busy women declined to add
this task to their burdens, or else failed to keep up the daily entries
once they had begun. My 90 families were thus the residue of a
much larger number; some of them dropped out; the entries of
others could not be depended upon. Repeated visits to "see
how the book is getting on," gave an opportunity to secure that
intimate knowledge of family life which most of all was desired.
One of my assistants, an American, became a resident of the town,

homestead: the households of a mill town

living like other residents and sending her son to the Homestead
schools. The young widow of a Slavic mill worker secured the
budgets from the immigrants. As an interpreter in the Home-
stead courts she held to a marked degree the confidence of her
people, and from her I gained an insight into Slavic customs and
points of view which was invaluable. The fairly complete picture
of the households thus obtained made the budgets more significant
and also threw light on the community life.

TABLE 5. — ANALYSIS OF 90 BUDGET FAMILIES. — BY RACIAL GROUP
AND NORMAL WEEKLY WAGE OF MAN*

Racial Group

Number of
families

Under
$12.00

$12.00-
$14.99

$15.00-
$19.99

$20.00
and over

Per cent
earning
under
$12.00

Slav . . .
Eng. sp. Eur.f .
Nat. white .
Colored

29
•3
25
23

2
6
4
9

2
2

'5
4

72.4

7-7
0.0

8.7

Total .

26.6

* For detailed analysis, see Appendix I, Table 1, p. 200.

t This group included English, Scotch, Irish and German families.

A few words of personal description from these individual
studies will illustrate the make-up of the representative groupings
of the table. The men earning less than $12 a week were largely
Slavic day laborers, many of them newcomers, although three
had been here fifteen years or more. Some were lately married,
starting life in a single room, and some had families of four or five
children to maintain.

The group of men earning $12 to $14.99 a week included
more varied types; such as a middle-aged Englishman, semi-
skilled, whose thrifty wife was managing on this wage to bring
up their six children; two Americans with equally large families
(one of six children, the other of seven), whose work also demanded
little skill, and who also had wives who to some extent made up
for the low wages by skilful housekeeping; a third American,
unambitious, who held a poorly paid "pencil" job,* and who
* Clerical or semi-clerical position.
38

WORK, WAGES, AND THE COST OF LIVING

already counted on his fourteen-year-old son to help provide for
the household; a colored teamster, who with three children to
support, called on his wife to earn a little, by cleaning for her
neighbors; and, in contrast to these, a Slav who had worked
seven years in the mill and was now an engineer. This group and
the succeeding one were drawn from the better paid day men and
the lower paid tonnage men.

Among the steel workers earning $15 to $19.99 were two
Slavs and a Scotchman who were helpers at the open-hearth
furnaces, an Irish machinist, one American with a good "pencil
job" and another who did semi-skilled work at the rolls. The
part which personal choice plays in spending when incomes are
large enough to give some margin, was illustrated by the families
of the men in this group. Here, an American on the clerical staff
of the mill with a clever wife and two small children, saved little,
for they had chosen instead to have an attractive five-room house;
there, a Slav with the same income and the same sized family lived
in two rooms which were shared by two lodgers, and already had a
bank account of $400; another, an Irish machinist, drank up
part of his wages, and his wife had not the gift of home-making.

The group of men earning $20 and over were good workmen
and good providers as well. For instance, one Was a Slav who
came to America over twenty years ago to begin life here as a
miner, and who now is a citizen and has a comfortable four-room
home; another, a Scotchman, intelligent and interesting, whose
home is a model of thrift, and whose four children are to have the
best that American public schools can give. Nine out of 15 of
the steel workers in this group were tonnage men.

There are two main factors which determine the standards
of living of such wage-earning families: one, external circum-
stances which the family cannot control, such as money-wages,
location, educational and social opportunities; the other, the
ideals which it is continually struggling to reach. No account
of individuals or families which fails to take both external cir-
cumstances and personal ideals into consideration can be complete;
both are necessary to reveal the latent power in the people of a
community. The problem presents itself to the mind of the

homestead: the households of a mill town

wage-earner in simpler English: "How much can I make? What
shall I spend it for?" As the second question is always that of a
choice of wants, the decision as to which seem worth working and
paying for is perhaps the clearest mark of a family's mental
development. If we collect data as to family expenditures and
compare the answers thus made to these two questions, we can
estimate the character and self-dependence of a laboring com-
munity; and, in turn, can measure what home life the wage-
earner's pay makes possible. What in the first place then are the
wages paid in Homestead ?

As a background to the study of the 90 budget families,
we were fortunate in securing an authoritative statement regard-
ing the men employed in the Homestead plant in March, 1907,
classified by racial group, degree of skill, etc. Of the total 6,772
men, 1,266, or 18.7 per cent, were skilled; 1,556, or 23 per cent,
semi-skilled; and 3,950, or 58.3 per cent, unskilled.

TABLE 6. — MEN EMPLOYED IN THE HOMESTEAD MILL IN MARCH,
I907. NUMBER AND PERCENTAGES. — BY RACIAL GROUPS AND
DEGREE OF SKILL

Racial Group

Skilled

Semi-skilled

Unskilled

Total

Per cent
Unskilled

Slav . .
Eng. sp. Eur.
Nat. white .
Colored

767
21

459
358
707

3064
367

3603

1 123

1925

121

8s. 0
3^7
23.4
56.2

Total .
Per cent

1266
.8.7

1556
23.0

395o

58.3

b772

A careful study of wages showed that unskilled laborers
received $ .16J an hour for a ten- or twelve-hour day; the semi-
skilled, including both day and tonnage workers, earn $2.00 or
f3.oo a day, and the skilled, $2.50 to $5.00, a small percentage
earning more than that.*

♦Beginning May 1, 1910, the prevailing rate for common labor was raised
to 17$ cents an hour in Homestead. This was part of a general advance put into
effect by the United States Steel Corporation, equal, ii was announced, to an
average of somewhat over 6 per cent on the rates previously paid.

WORK, WAGES, AND THE COST OF LIVING

These figures represent earnings, moreover, at the height of
a long period of prosperity. The first and most important fact
revealed by them is that the pay of over half the men in the
Homestead mills in 1907 was that of common laborers. Eighty-
five per cent of the Slavs, 23.4 per cent of the native whites,
32.7 per cent of the English-speaking Europeans and 56.2 per cent
of the colored were classed as unskilled, receiving less than $12 a
week. This will reveal the situation as it actually is to those who
have heard only that wages in the steel industry are high. Its
reputation for big wages is based on the earnings, especially in
the early years of the industry, of the rollers, heaters and other
skilled men, a fraction of the total force. The new machine
processes call for an increasing number of unskilled positions,
and however much the personnel of these workers shifts, this
group with a low maximum wage must be considered a constant
factor in Homestead life.

Even among the English-speaking employes, unskilled work
with its low wage is not always a merely temporary stage in mill
work, a period of apprenticeship, to be endured until time and
promotion bring a larger income. For instance, among the men
over forty years of age in the families keeping budgets, 16 earned
over $15 and 12 earned less than that sum. About a fourth of
the total number of those earning less than $15 were over forty.
Of the men earning $12 to $14,993 week, the six English-speaking
Europeans were on an average forty-five years old; the four
native whites, forty-five.

A second fact is scarcely less distinctive from an economic
point of view. Family life in Homestead depends for its support
almost entirely upon the men's earnings; women and chidren
rarely work outside the home since the steel plant and machine
works cannot use them and there are no other industries in the
town. Of the 90 budget families there were only nine in which
the income was supplemented by women's wages, and even in
these, with the exception of three colored households where the
women partly supported the family by days' work, the money
thus gained formed only a small percentage of the income.* On
the other hand, the mill offers work at good pay to young men,

*See Appendix I, Tables 2 and 3, p. 201.
41

homestead: the households of a mill town

and the husband's wage is frequently supplemented by that of the
son. Among the native white families, the husband and son in
normal times contributed 92.3 per cent of the total income;
among the English-speaking Europeans 98.7 per cent.

Among the immigrant families, however, and among all
those in which the man's earnings fell within the day labor rate,
our budget studies disclosed that another and exceptional source
of support was resorted to; namely, payment from lodgers.
It is upon the women of the household that this burden falls.
In families where the man's wage was normally less than $12 a
week, more than half found it necessary to increase their slender
income in this way. What this means in congestion and in lower
standards of living we shall see in a discussion of the Slavic house-
holds.

The third distinctive fact in the Homestead situation in
regard to earnings has been the steadiness of employment. Regu-
larity no less than rate of wages determines what a family's annual
receipts amount to, and the family adjusts its grade of living more
or less closely to this expected income. I was told that from the
time of the depression of 1893 up to November 1, 1907, the mills had
run almost without a break. Tonnage men who are paid by out-
put of course feel temporary lulls, but if a given department in a
mill is not working full time, the day men in that department
receive a full day's pay as long as the mill runs at all.

How far income standards which are thus rendered stable
by regular work in the Homestead mills have been jeopardized
by rate cuts which may or may not be justified by changes in
process, but against which the men have no check, and what
intense efforts they put forward to increase their speed and keep
their weekly earnings up to former levels, are issues of labor admin-
istration which are gone into by my colleague, Mr. Fitch.* That
most of the men will receive a full fortnight's pay regularly year
in and year out, has given a sense of security even in the face of
repeated reductions in the rates. It has created a basis for the
development of common standards of living which would be
impossible where employment was fluctuating.

* Fitch, John A.: The Steel Workers, Chap. XIV.
42

WORK, WAGES, AND THE COST OF LIVING

In Homestead, then, we have a community where half the
workmen are day laborers, where families are almost solely
dependent on the man's earnings, and where a man's earnings
one month are fairly like those of the next. Therefore, if the period
covered by the investigation had been a normal one, we could
have put opposite each other a family's usual earnings, and what
the money went for, as shown by account books, and have drawn
direct and simple deductions as to the relation between wages
and costs of living for each group. An industrial depression pre-
vented this. The period covered extended from October I, 1907,
to April 1, 1908. Within six weeks after the first budgets were
started the trouble began, and by the middle of December the
mills were running only about half time, a situation which lasted
during the remainder of the investigation. Incidentally, this
change brought us special data showing how people met hard
times. But, as few families were receiving full wages, many
household accounts dropped below what would have been normal
for them.

Recognition of this situation called for a special treatment of
the budget material as a whole. While the depression, as we have
seen, prevented statistical deductions as to how families ordinarily
spent their wages, it did not seriously conflict with a main purpose
of the economic side of the study. This was to find out what ele-
mentary standards of living are possible on an income say of $12 a
week in Homestead. To ascertain this, in my major tables I aban-
doned all reference to normal wages and divided the families ac-
cording to the amounts they actually expended per week during the
period studied, including what was purchased on credit. Rents
and the prices of food stuffs did not change during this period, and,
with these constant, $12 a week would, in general, buy the same
whether the payments were made out of the lowered earnings of a
family in slack times, or out of the total wages of a low paid
man when the mills were running full. As all accounts were dis-
carded in which there was a discrepancy of five per cent between
income and expenditure during the five to eight weeks studied,
the entries showed accurately what the families spent for this
period, and afforded a basis of fact to correct and strengthen the
impressions received in the more general survey of the situation.

homestead: the households of a mill town

The study of much larger groups of families carried over more
representative periods would be essential for an adequate inter-
pretation of the standards of living in such an industrial town.*
But as a simple gauge of the influence of mill town employment
upon home life, the items of our budgets, — rent, meals, clothing,
help for the housekeeper, and amusements — served to indicate
how far earnings will go either for the unskilled immigrant, who
seeks a foothold in this country, or for the American, who looks
to his work in the steel industry as a permanent basis for a liveli-
hood.f

These budgets, moreover, reflect the character of the working
people of Homestead. No less important than the question of
how much people spend is the question of what they buy and more
important than all, what they want. To learn these things we
must catch something of the spirit of their homes, for no account
of household expenditure, however detailed, can in itself reveal the
struggle people make to attain their ideals. And without knowing
these ideals we cannot judge how much the limitations which any
system of wages imposes concern society.

TABLE 7. — 90 BUDGET FAMILIES. — BY RACIAL AND EXPENDITURE

GROUP

Racial Group

Under
1 12.00

$ 12.00-
1 14.99

$15.00-
? 19-99

$20.00

and over

Total

Slav

Eng. Sp. Eur.
Native White
Colored.

'4
3
4

1 1

5
4

7
3

3
3

29
'3
25
23

Total .

* The colored group form less than two per cent of the working force in the
mill. They are included, therefore, not as numerically significant, but as affording
interesting points for com pari son with the Slavs.

t For statement as to the methods of inquiry and statistical treatment em-
ployed, see Appendix I, p. 187.

WORK, WAGES, AND THE COST OF LIVING

TABLE 8. — AVERAGE WEEKLY EXPENDITURES OF 90 BUDGET
FAMILIES IN I907, AMOUNTS AND PERCENTAGES. — BY CHIEF
ITEMS OF EXPENDITURE AND RACIAL GROUP

Racial Group

Colored .
Slav .

Eng. Sp. Eur
Nat. White

Num-
ber of
Fam-
ilies

23
29

Aver-

°&

pendi-
ture

$12.39
13.09
16.97

Rent

$2.43 19.6
2.00 15.3

2.91 17. 1

20.47 3l6l5-4

Food

$4.84391
5.98457
7-5544-5
7.4436.3

Fuel

$.82 6.6
.382.9
•45 2.7
.844.1

Insurance

» .92

.88

1.03

1.21

Other

I4
6.1
5-9

$3.41
3.86
5.03
7.82

27-5
29.5
29.6
38.2

TABLE 9. — AVERAGE WEEKLY EXPENDITURES OF 90 BUDGET
FAMILIES, AMOUNTS AND PERCENTAGES. — BY CHIEF ITEMS OF
EXPENDITURE AND EXPENDITURE GROUP

Vxpenditure
Group

Under $12.00
$12.00-$ 1 4.99
$15.00-$ 19.99
$20.00 and over

Num-
ber of
Fam-
ilies

16
23
19

Aver-
age
Ex-
pendi-
ture

$9.17
13.32

'7-59
25.56

Rent

$1.8820.5
2.29 17.2
2-73 >5-5
3-73 '4-5

Food

$4.1645,
5.8644.0
7.1140.4
9.38 36.7

Fuel

$.38

Insurance

I .70

•5'
1.05
1.86

I*
6.0

7-3

Other

$2.05
3.89
6.02
9.68

22.3
29.2

34-2
37-9

TABLE 10. — AVERAGE WEEKLY EXPENDITURES OF 77 HOUSE-RENT-
ING FAMILIES,* AMOUNTS AND PERCENTAGES. — BY CHIEF ITEMS
OF EXPENDITURE AND EXPENDITURE GROUP

Expenditure
Group

Under $12.00
$12.00-$ 1 4.99
$ 1 5 .00-$ 1 9.99
$20.00 and over

Num-
ber of
Fam-
ilies

28
'5
19
'5

Aver-
age
weekly

Ex-
pendi-
ture

$9.08
13.23
17.65
26.29

Rent

$2.15
2.45
3-3'

23-7
^8

4.7218.0

Food

Fuel

$3.81 42.0 $.38
5.6442.6 .72
7.0439.9 .61
9.88J37.6 .92

Insurance

! .66

•55
1.07

••95

* Of the 90 families, 13 owned their

7-3
4.2
6.0
7-4

Other

$2.07
3.88

fct?

22.9
29.3
3'-9
33-5

dwellings.

CHAPTER IV
RENT IN THE HOUSEHOLD BUDGET

THE type of house available at a given time in any com-
munity, whether the tenement of the city or the frame
cottage of the country, is largely determined by other fac-
tors than individual preference. While in clothes, in food, and
in amusements, personal likings play a large part, in housing
a certain common standard is accepted to which most people con-
form. Especially is this true in a growing mill town like Home-
stead, where in prosperous years there has been a dearth of houses
for rent. There is little choice in the kind of dwelling a working-
man's family can secure, and yet the house itself is a determining
circumstance in shaping the character of the home life.

As in most American towns of the last century's building, the
original lay-out of Homestead had little to commend it. Never-
theless, the plan made when the Homestead Bank and Life Insur-
ance Company plotted its first lots has been carried out in the
newer parts of Munhall and West Homestead, as well as in the cen-
tral borough. It is the customary checker-board plan, ill adapted
to the gullied hill slopes and triangular flats of a river bend. The
streets run parallel from east to west, intersected almost at right
angles by those running up and down the hill. The only variation
from this general scheme is found in one or two streets in Munhall,
which follow the beds of old water courses and have kept the curve
of the stream. The lots in Homestead are usually narrow, not more
than 20 or 25 feet in width. Originally, there was ample room be-
tween the streets for each house to have a good garden in the rear,
with plenty of air and freedom, and in the more open parts of the
town these gardens are still a source of pleasure. But in other sec-
tions they are being built upon and rear houses are multiplying
along the alleys which were cut between parallel streets to give ac-
cess to back doors. In the district nearest the mill, the alleys are

RENT IN THE HOUSEHOLD BUDGET

paved and are built up almost solid. The houses here, though still
only two stories high, cover so large a proportion of the land as
to limit the amount of air and light within doors, as well as the
space left for the children to play outside. This region is occupied
by the Slavs and will be described in a later section.

The hill section, which forms the upper part of all three
boroughs, has not suffered to such an extent from the overcrowd-
ing of the land, but most of the alleys, still unpaved, are littered
with rubbish and lined with outhouses and sheds. Here and there
are forlorn and often unsanitary dwellings, hardly more than
shanties. Such hill-side conditions as yet tell more against the
sightliness of the town than against its healthfulness.

There are in scattered sections attractive residences belong-
ing to business and professional men ; but in those parts of Home-
stead where the working people live, few evidences are to be found
of attempts to make dwellings attractive architecturally. They
are of that dreary type of small, closely-set frame structure so
characteristic of a rapidly growing industrial community. The real
estate companies, in their desire for economy, naturally plan their
houses on an inexpensive and, as far as possible, uniform scale, and
rising land values lead to the use of narrow lots. The common type
of house has four rooms, two on a floor, the front door opening di-
rectly on the street. The stairway to the second story occupies a
narrow hall between the two lower rooms. Some of the houses
contain five rooms. In a row of such houses the dining room,
back of the "front room," is lighted only by a window on the
narrow passageway between houses, and is never reached by direct
sunlight. The monotony of street after street is broken only by
the bits of lawn and flowers in front. Where there are yards in
the rear, they serve as play places for the children, and offer rest
and refreshment to the grownups. As the men are usually too
tired to enjoy working in them, the women often assume the task of
keeping the flowers and grass in order and find it a welcome change
from the hot kitchen. One garden, hardly 20 feet square, had
along one fence a thick row of violets that the daughter had
brought from the woods; a pink "bleeding heart" and several
flourishing rose bushes grew beside the house. The square in the
center, where grass was being coaxed to grow, was reserved for

homestead: the households of a mill town

the drying of clothes. The house contained but five rooms, and
with seven children the parents rejoiced in the freshness and quiet
of the yard in the evening. The garden pictured on the opposite
page, luxuriant with shrubs and flowers and vegetables, formed a
fine playground for children, puppies, and Belgian hares.

On the hill the gardens have a substantial aspect. One
family utilized an empty lot, and the beans, squashes, and other
vegetables raised there so decreased the family's cost of living
that they declined to keep an account since they said it would
not fairly represent their table expenses. An item of sixty
cents for garden seeds in the early spring in another family's bud-
get gave promise of both pleasure and profit. Many of the
families also save a good deal by keeping hens. On one visit,
hearing a curious noise beneath my chair, I looked down to find a
friendly chicken which had come for a feast of crumbs. One
woman kept a few hens to provide fresh eggs for her husband's
bucket. After his death she found that by selling them she could
add a little to a slender income. The gardens too develop neigh-
borliness of spirit, since the women often discuss over the fences
their horticultural ambitions.

In view of the unenviable reputation of "company houses"
everywhere, it is interesting to note that those owned and rented
by the Carnegie Land Company in Munhall are the best houses for
the money in the town. Though built in solid rows and wearisomely
uniform they are immaculately neat, with squares of lawn and
shade trees in front. These houses, which consist of five small
rooms, neatly finished, with running water in the house, but with no
bathroom, rent for $i i a month. Electric lights are furnished at
a cost of $1.50 a month. Another company row contains four-
room houses, without lights or running water, which rent for $8.50.
Though some families feel a lack of privacy in these unbroken
blocks there is always a waiting list. Throughout Munhall, the
cottages vary more in design and the lawns are larger than in the
other boroughs. Sixteenth Avenue, for instance, is an example of
effective, inexpensive house-building.

Bearing these general conditions in mind, the facts in regard
to the houses of a few of the budget families will give us a back-
ground for the tables to follow. They will suggest how individual

Photo by Hine

Back Yakd Possibilities in Homestead — I

Photo by Hine

Back Yard Possibilities in Homestead — II

RENT IN THE HOUSEHOLD BUDGET

and racial preferences modify the general tendency to pay more
rent as income increases.

Davis.* Colored. Man, wife and four children. Man
a hod carrier with irregular work at $3.00 a day. They live
in a small dilapidated house, built in the middle of a lot on
an alley. Water in yard. Unsewered closets emptied by town
on application. Three rooms. $7.50 a month.

Chismer. Slav. Man, wife, two small children. Man
a laborer in mill, $1 .65 a day. House on alley, no yard, water
from hydrant in court, unflushed toilet. Two rooms. $8.00
a month.

Chech. Slav. Man, wife, two children and two board-
ers. Man earns $15 a week in the mill. Water and toilet in
yard. Two rooms each about 1 5 feet square. $8.00 a month.

Jones. American. Man, wife, seven children. Man
earns $17 a week in the mill. Small frame house on alley.
Practically no yard. Water in house. Toilet in yard.
Three rooms. $1 1 a month.

McCarthy. Irish. Man, wife, four children. Man
earns $16 a week in mill. Half a double house, unattrac-
tive. Small yard. Water and toilet in yard. Four rooms.
$12 a month.

Brown. American. Man, wife, five children. Man
earns $15 a week and son $5.00 a week in the mill. Small
frame house, very close to mill. Small porch directly on
street. Small yard. Running water in house, toilet in yard.
Five rooms. $12.50 a month.

Schmidt. German-American. Young couple, one
child. Man earns $50 a month. Small house in row. No
hall. Water from hydrant on porch used by several families.
No yard. Three rooms. $13 a month.

Kocis. Slav. Here twelve years. Man, wife, three
children, five boarders. Man earns $10.80 a week. Fairly
large yard. Water and closet in yard. Four rooms, one
dark. $14 a month.

Evans. American. Man, wife, one child, lodger. Man
earns $3^00 a day. Attractive house. Small porch. Good
yard. Toilet and water in house. Four rooms .$i5amonth.

Lewis. Colored. Man, wife, three children, the oldest
six. Man earns $2.10 a day in the mill. Rather shabby but
comfortable frame house on outskirts of town. A large
garden, which they cultivate. Water from pump in yard.
Closet not connected with sewer. Five rooms. $16 a month.

* The names used throughout this book are fictitious.

4 49

homestead: the households of a mill town

Smith. American. No children. Man earns $18
a week in mill. Half of double house with only narrow path
at side. Toilet and running water in house. Five rooms.
$20 a month.

Burns. Scotch. Man, wife, two sons at work, three
children in school. Total income about $30 a week. Frame
house, only a narrow path on each side. Small porch directly
on street. Good yard behind. Water in house, closet in
yard. Six rooms. $24 a month.

Seventy-seven of the 90 budget keepers were tenant families
Their expenditures for rent during the period studied are shown
in Table 1 1 .

TABLE I I . — AVERAGE AMOUNT OF RENT PER WEEK PAID BY THE
77 HOUSE-RENTING FAMILIES. — BY EXPENDITURE AND RACIAL
GROUP

Under

1 12.00-

$15.00-

$20.00

Average

$12.00

% 1 499

1 19-99

and Over

of All

>*-« 1

-^-

Racial Group

feJ

Aver-

0 2

fc y: Aver-

Aver-

age

-0 5

age

|8 age

age

a,"3

Rent

a£ Rent

Rent

S."3
^

Rent

Colored

1 1

$2.22

»2.37

$2.96

$2.50

$2.43

Slav. . .

1.64

2.41

2-77

2.62

2.14

Eng. Sp. Eur. .

3.38
3-85

2.50

3-75

5-35

3.78

Nat. White

3.00

3-99

5.56

4.65

Total families .

Average rent

••

$2.15

I2.45

?3-3'

$4.72

$3.00

With a few exceptions, there is of course in each racial
group a general increase in rent according to the amount
of income. But in each expenditure class the Slav spends less
rent on the average than do the English-speaking Europeans and
Americans. In the lowest and the highest groups the expenditure
of the other whites is more than double that of the Slavs. The
low expenditure for rent among a majority of the Slavic and
colored families goes hand in hand with overcrowding and un-
sanitary tenements, a fact borne out not only by the vivid im-
pression of squalor received by the chance visitor to the courts

RENT IN THE HOUSEHOLD BUDGET

and alleys in which many of them live, but by a scrutiny of the
accommodations which they secure for themselves.* Taking the
room as the unit and stating the proposition roughly for all 90
families, in nearly three out of five of the older immigrant families
there was but one person to a room. The same was true in four
out of five of the native white families, but of only one out of five
of the Slavic. Fourteen families out of 17 of those in which there
were three persons to the room were Slavs.f

The fact that the Slavs and the colored people come nearest
in their expenditures suggests that the housing standard first
adopted by the former is very like that of the working Negro.

Turning to the size of the dwelling, 10 out of 13 of the older
immigrant stock J lived in houses with four or more rooms,
and 22 out of 25 of the native white; moreover, 10 of the
latter had houses of six rooms. On the other hand, one-half of
the Slavic and colored families lived in one- or two-room houses.
It was among these groups in the budget families, and only among
these, that such small homes were found. This was a level to
which the mill workers who had lived here since before the strike
did not go. It was a level still more desperately depressed by
overcrowding in the lodging houses of the Slavic courts.

But while thus recognizing that racial standards modify
rental expenditures, an economic analysis of these same budgets
shows that the determining factor is wages. The two races
spending the smallest per cent for rent are those with the lowest
incomes. They give too small a margin for the family to consider
how desirable a better home would be. As it is, these poorest
families put a greater proportion of their expenditures into rent
(Table 13) than do any of the others, the percentage being a
third higher, 23.7 per cent as against 18.5 per cent, 18.8 per cent,
18 per cent.g

* Four out of five of the native white, and three out of five of other Euro-
peans had running water in the house, as against less than two out of five for colored
or Slavs. Only three houses out of 65 occupied by families other than native whites
contained indoor toilets, while 12 out of 25 houses occupied by native whites were
provided with them.

t Appendix I, Table 5, p. 202.

X Appendix I, Table 7, p. 202.

§ These percentages for rent are not widely different from those given by
Mr. Chapin in his study of conditions among tenement families in New York City

homestead: the households of a mill town

TABLE 12. — EXPENDITURE FOR RENT OF 77 HOUSE-RENTING FAMI-
LIES. AVERAGE AMOUNT AND PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL EX-
PENDITURE.— BY RACIAL GROUP

Racial Group

Number of
Families

Average

Weekly

Expenditure

Average

Expenditure

for Rent

Per cent
for Rent

Slavs .

Eng. Sp. Eur. .

Nat. White

Colored

27
10

'7
23

$12.93
17.90
21.72
12.39

$2.14
3.78
4.65
2.43

16.6
21.1

19.6

TABLE 13. — EXPENDITURE FOR RENT OF 77 HOUSE-RENTING FAMI-
LIES. AVERAGE AMOUNT AND PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL EX-
PENDITURE.— BY EXPENDITURE GROUP

Expenditure
Group

Number of ^ J
Famihes | ExpendJure

Average

Expenditure

for Rent

Per cent
for Rent

Under $12.00 .
$i2.oo-$i4.99 .
$15.00-$ 19.99 .
$20.00 and over

$ 9.08
.3.23
17.65
26.29

$2.15
2.45

3-3'
472

18.J

18.8
18.0

Rent in the 77 Homestead tenant families rises steadily
(Table 13) from an average of $2.1 5 per week paid by the laborer
who works for $ 1.65 per day to the $4.72 per week paid on an
average by the skilled steel worker. How far overcrowding
decreases in proportion to the extra expenditure can be summed
up briefly :* Of the 48 families in the group spending under $ 1 5 (in-
cluding the house owners), 26, or over one-half, were living with
two or more persons to the room ; of the 42 families spending more
than $15, only 14, or one-third, had two or more persons to the

where families with an income of $500 to $599 spend 25.9 per cent for rent, and
those with an income of $1000 to $1009 spend 18.1 per cent. Chapin, Robert
Coit: The Standard of Living among Workingmen's Families in New York City,
p. 70. (New York, Charities Publication Committee, 1909. Russell Sage Founda-
tion Publication.) The percentages are far in excess of the figures given for normal
l.mulic. In the U. S. Bureau of Labor which reports 16 per cent for 170 families
with an income of $800 to $900, and only 12 percent for families with an income
of $750 to $1100. Eighteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor,
1903.

•Appendix I, Table 6, p. 202.

RENT IN THE HOUSEHOLD BUDGET

room; and of the 19 families spending over $20, only five, or one-
fourth. Of the 21 budget families who lived in two rooms, over
half had less than $12 per week to spend; of the five who lived
in one room, none had over that sum.*

These figures do not sustain the oft repeated declaration that
people would not live better if they could. With the lowest paid
workers spending a larger per cent of their weekly fund for rent
than the better-to-do, and with overcrowding nearly absent in the
better paid groups, we have tangible indications that overcrowd-
ing is ordinarily a result of financial necessity, rather than of
either hoarding or spendthrift habits. I am speaking here of the
families who rent small houses or let out their rooms, rather than
of the lodgers who room with them. When income permits, most
families secure room enough to make a genuine home life possible.
How long people would maintain this standard in the face of pro-
longed hard times it is difficult to say. Since the depression of
1908 was recognized as temporary, landlords were lenient and
waited for their rents. Residents and real estate men, however,
told of many families who moved to smaller tenements, and the
unusual sight of "to let" signs among the better houses bore wit-
ness to the change. A couple who had considered a $25 five-
room house none too spacious, sublet two rooms for $8.00 to
another couple who had formerly occupied a three-room $12 tene-
ment. This process, which was going on throughout the town
during the months of the depression, shows that rent is an item
that is cut down when economy becomes necessary. As it hap-
pened, none of the budget families moved during this period, and
the expenditures for rent given are those of normal times.

To turn from overcrowding to sanitation, I often found that
in a house which had abundance of light and air the water faucet
was located on the back porch instead of in the kitchen, and that
even when there was running water in the house the only toilet
was a privy vault in the back yard. These defects, though due in
part to the political inaction which has resulted in a bad water
supply and to inadequate housing ordinances, constitute partly
an individual problem, involved in the relation of landlord to
tenant.

* Appendix I, Table 8, p. 203.

homestead: the households of a mill town

How far property owners were in a position to disregard the
desires of tenants, is indicated by the fact that when I came to
Homestead in the fall of 1907, there were few houses for rent in the
whole town. My impression of the general situation was that the
under-supply enabled landlords to let unimproved dwellings at
profitable rentals without having to put them in good order;
and that these sanitary deficiencies were submitted to by many
people, not because they did not desire better conditions, but
because they were unable to pay the higher rates demanded for
improved homes. The average rent per month per room of the
houses occupied by the 90 budget families was 13.93. The average
rent per month of houses in the courts, where conditions were ex-
ceedingly bad, was but $3.63 a room, and that of houses on the
hill occupied by the native whites $4.14. The difference between
these last two rents, then, for a house of four rooms, was over
$2.00 a month.

TABLE 14. — FAMILIES HAVING RUNNING WATER IN THE HOUSE AND
INDOOR CLOSETS. — BY WEEKLY RENT

Normal Weekly Rent

Number of
Families

Running Water
in House

Indoor Closets

Under$2.oo.

f 2.00 to $2.99

J3.00 to $3.99
$4.00 to $4.99
$5.00 to $5.99
$6.00 to $0.99
I7.00 and over

Owning homes

34
10

3
'3

14
7
3

3
9

1
1
4

Total .

•

Sanitary conveniences go (or do not go) with a house as a
whole. Only three out of 16 of the families whose rent was less
than $2.00 a week had running water in the building; one-third
of those who paid less than $3.00 had running water inside; two-
thirds of those who paid between $3.00 and $5.00; and all those
paying over $5.00. Nine out of 13 of the house-owners, moreover,
had running water in their homes. Seven out of 1 1 of the families

RENT IN THE HOUSEHOLD BUDGET

paying $5.00 or more had indoor closets, as against four out of
66 paying less than that sum.

Taken together, these facts express fairly the desire of
American and English-speaking European families to have houses
which in size, sanitation, and conveniences would make a normal
and efficient life possible. With the existing prices in Homestead,
the amount expended for rent by the households whose budgets ran
over $20 a week ($4.72) was none too large for the average family
which desired sanitary conveniences and a sufficient number of
rooms to insure privacy and the development of the home. The sum
paid for rent by those who had less than $12 a week to cover all
expenditures ($2. 1 5) did not provide bare sanitary surroundings.

As I passed in and out of the homes 1 was impressed with
the genuine strength of the family ideals manifested in simple
and externally unattractive dwellings; for standards of home life
depend upon more than rooms and running water. It has often
been said that the first evidence of the growth of the social instinct
in any family is the desire to have a parlor. In Homestead this
ambition has in many cases been attained. Not every family,
it is true, can afford one, yet among my English-speaking acquaint-
ances even the six families each of whom lived in three rooms
attempted to have at least the semblance of a room devoted to
sociability. In one three-room house, where there were seven
children, a room which had in it a folding bed, a wardrobe, the
carriage where the baby slept in the daytime, and the sewing
machine, was referred to with pride as the "front room," a phrase
with a significance quite beyond its suggestion of locality.

Much money and interest go toward making this room the
center of home life. Here in the evening the family gathers about
the soft coal or gas grate, while the mother sews, and one of the
older children plays to the father. Such "front rooms" are the
scenes of those simple festivities which enliven existence in this
town. One mother described happily the evenings with her chil-
dren: "My boys are so musical and the other fellows come in and
we all have such a good sing together, and then Mamie dances
the Highland Fling. They offered to pay her to do it in the
nickelodeon, but the boys won't let her do it away from home."

homestead: the households of a mill town

The furniture, though sometimes of the green plush variety,
often displays simplicity and taste. A center table, a few chairs,
a couch, and frequently either an organ or piano complete the
furnishings. Usually there are pictures — the family portraits or
some colored lithographs — and almost always that constant friend
of the family, the brilliantly colored insurance calendar. Pic-
tures of one or two such rooms will show how well the women have
succeeded in making them homelike.

In the four-room houses, the family eat in the kitchen. In
five-room houses we find an anomaly known as the "dining room."
Though a full set of dining room furniture, sideboard, table and
dining chairs, are usually in evidence, they are rarely used at meals.
The family sewing is frequently done there, the machine standing
in the corner by the window; and sometimes, too, the ironing, to
escape the heat of the kitchen; but rarely is the room used for
breakfast, dinner or supper. One woman said, "My daughter is
in High School, and she thought we ought to eat there and said
she would wait on the table, but in about a week I noticed she
set the table in the kitchen again." Where there is no servant it
is much easier to cook and serve in the same room ; so the dining
room, though finding plenty of use, does not live up to its name.

The kitchen is the important room of the house. Here the
mother spends the day, here the family meet for meals and the
children come between times for the much sought for "piece."
The furnishings usually include a good range, either coal or gas,
which most Homestead housewives consider a necessity. As few
houses have running water inside, set tubs are rare, but washing
machines, which cost about $15, are more often found. The
kitchen usually opens on the garden, and in the sections where
rear houses have not been built this space provides also a place
where the children can play under their mother's eye.

Throughout the part of the town occupied by the English-
speaking workmen, we find these evidences of a very real interest
in the home. More substantial proof of the instinct of homemak-
ing is shown in the often heroic efforts to buy the house. In view
of the number of families who could not pay sufficient rent to
secure either rooms enough for comfortable living or sanitary
conveniences, it is a striking fact that according to the census

Photo bv nine

A "Front Room"

Photo by nine

Row of Detached Workinc.mkn's Houses in Munhall; Mill Stacks
Showing above Housetops

RENT IN THE HOUSEHOLD BUDGET

figures of 1900, 586 families in Homestead borough, 25.7 per cent
of the total number, held title to their homes; and 47.4 per cent
of these were free from encumbrance. Personal interviews have
corroborated this evidence that mill-town workingmen wish to
own their dwellings.

In the budget families, eight out of 25 Americans, three
out of 13 of the English-speaking Europeans and two of the 29
Slavs owned their homes, and five others were buying them.
While none of these earned normally under $12, not all belonged
to the highest wage group. Five had an income of $12 to 1 14.99,
two of 1 1 5 to $19.99, and 1 1 of $20 or over. For the five on the
lower income it had been a slow process to buy a home, requiring
much self-denial.

TABLE 15. — 18 HOUSE-PURCHASERS AMONG 90 BUDGET FAMILIES.
— BY NORMAL WEEKLY INCOME AND BY RACIAL GROUP

Racial Group

Number
of Budget
Families

Number
Purchas-
ing
Homes

Families in Which Man
Normally Earned

Under
$12.00

$12.00-
$14.99

$15.00-
$19.99

$20.00
and over

Slav

Eng. Sp. Eur.
Nat. White .
Colored ....

29
>3

5
10

3
1

1
1
9

Total

18*

1 1

13 families owned their houses; 5 were paying instalments.

Ownership is made possible in many cases by the attitude
of the real estate companies, which in Homestead prefer building
for sale rather than for rent, and which safeguard their clients in
such a way that workingmen dare to buy. They have made
buying a very simple proposition. The purchaser pays down a
small sum, sometimes as low as $150. The company assumes the
obligation of paying interest on the mortgage, insurance, taxes,

homestead: the households of a mill town

etc., and the buyer pays a monthly instalment large enough to
cover this and make a small reduction on the principal. For
instance, a neat five-room frame cottage with running water in
the kitchen but containing no bathroom, is worth about $2000.*
Of this sum the purchaser pays $300 down., and his monthly
instalment is $17. Smaller houses can be purchased with in-
stalments correspondingly reduced.

About twenty years ago the Carnegie Steel Company started
the plan of permitting their employes to deposit money with the
company. At that time also the company commenced making
loans to employes to assist them in purchasing homes. It was
believed the deposits would be offset by the amount loaned for
this purpose, but it did not work out that way, the loans not
equalling the deposits. Accordingly, for a number of years the
extension of deposits by employes has not been encouraged,
although any employe who chooses to do so is permitted to open
an account. At the present time only about 1 100 employes in
the different plants of the company are depositors. Loans up to
two-thirds of the value of the property are made to employes to
aid them in buying homes. Interest is charged at the rate of
5 per cent per annum plus the state tax.f The principal is pay-

* The Homestead Realty Company will mortgage such a house for $1,000,
and sell the property on monthly payments, taking a second mortgage for the
balance less the money paid down by the purchaser. If the family pays $300 down,
this second mortgage would be $700. The company sells on the plan of one dollar
per month for each $100 of indebtedness. In this case, therefore, the monthly pay-
ment would be 1 1 7, half of which would be applied against the indebtedness, and
the other half would just cover the six per cent interest on the mortgages. Every
six months the company gives credit on the indebtedness, thus reducing the in-
terest charges; it deducts taxes, etc., on the other hand, from the payments made.
By this system the second mortgage of $700 would probably be cleared by the
monthly payments in six years; in other words, the family would be down to the
first mortgage. From this point on, as this is only a 50 per cent mortgage, they are
able to shift for themselves without the interference of the company. In view of
the fact that good locations in Homestead are very scarce, the manager states
that families who have paid in $500 or $600, and then desired to leave town, have
always been able to turn their property over at as much, or even more, than they
paid for it.

t A point of contrast between the house-building operations in such an
American mill town, and those in certain of the European industrial centers, is the
fact that on the loaned capital by which the American workman becomes a house-
owner, he pays a rate not much if any less than that paid by any small individual
borrower. Through the Industrial Insurance Funds of Germany, and grants by
the governmental authorities in Great Britain, such building operations can be
financed at a much lower rate.

RENT IN THE HOUSEHOLD BUDGET

able in monthly instalments. At the present time 165 employes
have loans from the company.

Some of the other means adopted to secure a home are illus-
trated in the story of a delightful Englishman, once a silk weaver
but now an engineer in the mill, who lives in Munhall Hollow.
The meaning of the word Homestead is all but forgotten by its
people, but the story of this man's house building shows much of
the spirit of the old settlers. When he wished to build, he had
very little money. Mr. Munhall, who was then living, gave him
a note to a lumber firm, who sold him $200 worth of lumber on
credit. He paid down $24 for the lease of a lot.* Since he did part
of the work, the labor cost on his three-room house was only about
$40. As soon as these debts were paid, he incurred another for
f 200 in order to enlarge the kitchen and build a second bedroom
over it; then he added a front porch and later a shed in the rear
for a storehouse, with a chicken coop beside it. All this was done
while there were three children at home, and on the income of an
engineer, not over $3.00 a day. Now he and his wife, despite the
disadvantage of not having a freehold in the land, take in their
comfortable though simple home the pride of the creator as well as
of the owner — a feeling rare in these days of huge tenements and
"company houses," when men accept whatever can be had for
the renting and when long shifts make it difficult for them to put
the work of their hands into their homes if they would.

When the house is paid for, the family often takes a genuine
pleasure in its improvement. Sometimes it is the addition of a
bathroom; sometimes the re-papering in the spring which the
busy mother finds time to do; sometimes the building of a wash-
house in the yard. To plan and carry out these improvements
always means the development of a sense of family life and its
common interests. One Italian family had been world wanderers,
going from Sicily where the man was a stone mason, to France;
from there to South America, to pick coffee on a Brazilian planta-
tion; and at last they had come to America. In each of three
places in this country in which they had lived they had secured a

* Criticism was made in an earlier chapter (p. 26) of the undesirable features
of the leasing system of the John Munhall Estate, which affects between two and
three hundred families in the community. In this instance the plan did not work
out unhappily.

homestead: the households of a mill town

bit of property. Now, as the man was earning I2.50 a day and
two relatives boarded with them, he could buy a four-room house
on the outskirts of the town, worth $1500. During the summer,
after work hours he built a fence, a hen house, and a cold frame for
vegetables, and began to get his ground in shape for a good
garden. When winter came he went to work on a basement
kitchen so that the first floor could be kept for living rooms.
He dug and plastered and ceiled it with matched wood, till it was
snug and cozy.

To have a bathroom is a real ambition with the native white
families, and some of those who live in the otherwise excellently
equipped company houses mentioned the lack of one as a great
drawback to their convenience. A number of families who
owned their houses had themselves gone to the expense of putting
in baths, while others proposed some day to do the same. The
woman of the Italian family just referred to, who lives on one of
the unsewered streets on the hill, told me eagerly that she expected
to have a bath as soon as the town provided water, an indication,
in passing, of how the town government often lags behind the
ambitions of individual householders.

Much of the burden of buying the home falls on the house-
wife. She must make the needed economies if the extra money is
to be forthcoming; she must see that the sum is ready when the
days for payments come. The final value of the effort is shown in
the case of one family who bought a house when the sons were
at home helping to swell the income. Now when the boys are
married and gone, and the father, no longer strong, earns but
$2.25 a day, the parents can still live in simple comfort. Another
instance was that of a couple from the country who started to buy
when they were first married. In the course of five years, on an
income of about $2.75 a day, they had purchased a comfortable
five-room house. One Friday the young husband made the last
payment and on Monday he was killed in the mill, leaving his
wife to provide for three children. By renting three rooms for
$10 a month and by taking in washing, she hoped, with the money
coming from the company and his insurance, to maintain herself.

Granted the obvious advantages in house ownership, why
after all does not everybody buy ? Some families, it is true, can-

(K)

i. Frame Houses. Five rooms and bath.

2. Brick Houses. Four rooms and bath; cemented cellars; yard 40 x 400.

$2700 to $2800. Built by Homestead Realty Co.

3. Residenxe Street. Tenanted largely by business and professional men.

The first and third houses are owned by mill men not superintendents.

RENT IN THE HOUSEHOLD BUDGET

not save even $150, nor spare the small extra sums involved in
the monthly payments. The study of the budgets of families living
on $12 or under a week reveals too small a margin after the neces-
sities of life have been provided for. Some, too, are indifferent;
others decide against it after consideration. I was much interested
in the different positions taken by two sisters in regard to the wis-
dom of buying. One, with six children, whose husband makes
something over $3.00 a day, said: " I didn't try to buy, because I
wanted to give my children everything that was coming to them,
and I wouldn't stint them." So, as far as she can, she gives them
what the other children in school have; and I3.00 goes but a little
way when there are eight to provide for. The other, wiser per-
haps, began early to buy her home. She has been married only five
years, to a man whose income is about the same as her brother-in-
law's, and has two little ones to care for; but already she has made
the initial payment on the five-room house which will cost them
about I3000. By sub-letting two rooms for $8.00 a month their
monthly payments take from their wages only about as much
as the regular rent. It will be some years before they have the
indebtedness paid off, but they plan to be well on their way
toward accomplishing this by the time the children are large
enough to need the other rooms.

Considering the number who buy on this plan, there are few
foreclosures. Since work in Homestead is steady, loss of income
due to lack of employment has not been so serious a menace to
house buying as in many communities. The depression of 1907-8,
of course, produced unusual conditions, but the real estate com-
panies recognized the importance of keeping the confidence of the
community and bore the brunt of the trouble themselves. I was
told that of the three mortgages foreclosed in Homestead in 1907,
none was on a workingman's home. If a man has shown any dis-
position to honesty, — and in Homestead it is possible to know
people intimately, — the real estate company will allow him, when
in a hard place, to suspend all payments except interest on the
mortgage. Trustworthy people are therefore fairly safe in starting
to buy, so far as normally steady work and the co-operation of the
realty company can give security.

The house-buyer, nevertheless, has his hazards, and they are

homestead: the household of a mill town

very real ones. The greatest difficulty arises from periodical cuts
in wages. In 1908 for example, in mid-winter, I was told that
the rate of wages of tonnage men was reduced in some cases 16$
per cent. A family which by careful economy out of the wages
current in the fall, could make the extra expenditure toward
buying a house, might after such a cut find itself in a serious
predicament. To keep on with payments would mean cutting
down everywhere margins that are already small. As these
wage cuts can never be foreseen, they introduce so serious an
element of uncertainty that many doubt the wisdom of embarking
their entire capital, though small, in such a venture. One family
had been saving for some time; then the man was slightly injured
in the mill, and $80 of savings went before he was at work again.
The family kept on saving, however, and with $300 in the bank
was hoping to begin the purchase the following spring, when hard
times came and the surplus was again diminished. The woman
fearing other catastrophes now hesitated gravely. When a
family has put all its savings into a house, death, discharge, or
displacement of the man by a machine, may compel a forced sale;
a strike or season of hard times, or the removal of a plant from a
given town, may leave him in a worse predicament.

Home owning, moreover, lessens the mobility of labor, since
when one is partly paid for a man will pull up stakes and seek
work elsewhere only under extreme pressure. From the point of
view of the company, this is an ever present advantage. For the
employe it is a potential disadvantage, especially in a town like
Homestead where, since the strike of 1892, the men have had no
voice in the matter of wages and no security as to length of em-
ployment. Hitherto the disadvantages to the employe house-
owners have not been extreme because with the lack of sufficient
houses in Homestead it has been easy to realize upon them. In
the average mill town, however, house ownership may prove an
encumbrance to the workingman who wants to sell his labor in
the highest market.

(.2

CHAPTER V
TABLE AND DINNER PAIL

DURING my sojournings in Homestead, I found it of little
avail to stand knocking at front doors. 1 1 was wise to go
straight to the back door, which opened into the warm
and cheerful kitchen. Here I was sure to find the housekeeper
busy preparing for the ever recurring meal, economically her most
important task. Not only is food the largest item in the family
account, but it is also one which, by thrift and ability, housewives
can reduce without lessening the comfort of the family. The " cost
of living" is a problem they themselves are studying practically,
and many of them took a lively interest in the results of the budget
investigation.

In general, the account books revealed a fairly intelligent
choice of foods, including a large amount of fruit and green vege-
tables, chosen apparently to meet the need of men who do very hot
work. The following bill of fare for four days is fairly typical
of the English-speaking households. The head of the family in
this instance earned about I3.00 a day.

Monday

Breakfast: Oat-meal and milk, eggs and bacon, bread, butter,

jelly, coffee.
Dinner: Soup, bread, fruit.
Supper: Meat, beans, potatoes, fruit, red beets, pickles.

Tuesday

Breakfast: Chocolate, eggs, bread, butter, and jelly.

Dinner: Spinach, potatoes, pickles, warmed over meat, fruit,

bread, butter.
Supper: Meat, sweet potatoes, carrots, beans, tomatoes, tea,

bread, butter and fruit.

homestead: the households of a mill town

Wednesday

Breakfast : Eggs, corncakes, potatoes, coffee, rhubarb, bread, butter.
Dinner: Soup, bread, butter.

Supper: Lamb stew with dumplings, cucumber, eggplant, beans,
corn, coffee, bread and butter, fruit.

Thursday

Breakfast: Eggs, fruit, eggplant, coffee, cakes.
Dinner: Soup, bread and butter, cakes, fruit.
Supper: Fish, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, pie, tea.

When the man does not come home for the noon meal, as
in this instance, it is usually a light one for the rest of the household.
In another family where they had eggs for breakfast and meat for
supper, the children were fed at mid-day on mush and milk with
bread and molasses.

In mill-town economics, the dinner pail must be reckoned
with as part of the table, and a bill of fare must be read
with that in mind. I was struck with the pains often taken
with the "mister's" bucket. The women used to carry hot
lunches to the mill, but they are not now allowed inside without
a pass. Most of the men, as they are not given regular time for
eating, snatch a bite between tasks, though some, whose work
permits, stop for a leisurely meal. I even heard of men who
took steaks to cook on the hot plates about the machines. But
they usually rely on the cold meal, and the women take great
pains to make it appetizing, especially by adding preserves in a
little cup in a corner of the bucket. They try to give the man
what he likes the most, apparently half from pity at the cold food
and hard work that fall to his lot.

On the other hand, the women do not seem to realize that
special care is needed in feeding the children, and generally give
them much the same that their elders have. The mothers rarely
attempt to check the natural tendency of childhood to be always
running in for a bite between meals. The children suffer, too,
from the fact that the time for meals is irregular because of the
weekly change in the man's hours. One woman told me that the
men get a bad habit of eating at odd times in the mill, and with
this and meal hours changing every week, expect to eat whenever

TABLE AND DINNER PAIL

they feel like it. The household naturally picks up the habit with
disastrous results both to digestion and housekeeping.

Sunday dinner is the one meal that serves as a time of fes-
tivity. Almost every account showed that on Saturday an extra
piece of meat, usually a roast, was bought. The men have
some leisure on Sunday and sit down with pleasure to a more
elaborate dinner. Sometimes the married sons and daughters
come home for that meal, and altogether it plays a definite part
in the week's pleasure. Unfortunately, however, as the men
usually work either Saturday night or Sunday night, they rarely
have the whole of Sunday to themselves, with that sense of free-
dom and let-up which means so much at the end of the week.

Occasionally, especially on holidays, there are family re-
unions. On Thanksgiving, when the mills run as usual, few prep-
arations are made for the hurried dinner. Christmas, however,
is a great day in Homestead. Twice a year, on that day and on
July Fourth, the great mill stops. Everyone who can goes home,
some to families in Homestead, others to neighboring towns, and
there are Christmas trees in many homes. Some of the women
who kept budget accounts took care to explain that their unusual
expenses in December, both for food and extras, were for Christ-
mas festivities.

Formal guests are infrequent. Where the housewife is also
cook, there are difficulties in the way of hospitality, which are
accentuated by the irregular meals and the hours of work. People
who live simply and eat informally rarely utilize the meal time
for guests as do more conventional households. But though
rarely a time of festivity, the meal hour is always present in the
housewife's mind. When asked for an account of what they
spent on food the women usually responded cheerfully, "We
spend all we can get." They realized, nevertheless, that econ-
omies are possible and necessary if bills are to be met on
pay day. For in spite of the reputed high wages among steel
workers, the problem Homestead housewives face in trying to
provide food and a good home on the man's earnings is no easy
one. As we shall see from these budgets, excellent management is
required to secure a really adequate food supply with the amount
that can be set aside for this purpose.
5 65

homestead: the households of a mill town

Food stuffs are high in this region. At a hearing before
the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce in 1906, this fact was
partially ascribed to geographical situation and local conditions.
Since the river valleys are given over to the production of steel
rather than of vegetables, fresh foods must be brought from
a distance. This, of course, means added cost, because of
freight charges. Some dealers claimed, also, that railroad terminal
facilities were totally inadequate, and that fruit and vegetables
spoiled while waiting to be unloaded. Moreover, as other local
dealers stated, the ease with which money has been made in
Pittsburgh has invited high prices.

While comparative statistics as to food prices are usually
open to question, those secured by the United States Bureau of
Labor may be considered fairly dependable, since the same meth-
ods were used in securing the data in different localities. Ac-
cording to the figures in the Bulletin for 1907, the ordinary
staple articles were more expensive in Pittsburgh than in any
other city of similar size in the country. Pittsburgh slightly
outranked even New York, not because its prices were in many
cases the very highest, though among the selected articles that
was true of lard, molasses, and rice, but because this Pennsyl-
vania city ranked second in the prices paid for the great bulk
of the commodities of ordinary consumption, — beans, chuck roast,
salt beef, butter, mutton, fresh pork and bacon, — all of them
articles entering largely into the workingman's bill of fare.*

All Allegheny County is closely connected with Pittsburgh
by suburban trolley lines, and prices in the smaller markets
throughout the district are to a great extent uniform. Such
comparative data as I gathered, fortified by the experience of
the housekeepers I knew, indicated that Homestead prices were
practically on the same level with those of Pittsburgh.

Given then a fairly high cost of living, what proportion of
the household income goes for food ? The answer to this first
question to be drawn from the budget material was of necessity

* Bulletin U. S. Bureau of Labor, July, 1907, pp. 175-328. See Appendix I,
Table 9, p. 203; also Appendix IX, p, 241. Pittsburgh's excess in the prices of
food stuffs is, however, not so great as to render the figures as to cost of living
in Homestead inapplicable to workingmen's budgets in many other American
industrial district*.

TABLE AND DINNER PAIL

affected by half-time work in the case of many families. Yet with
this reservation in mind, the figures which show the comparative
expenditures of the different racial and economic groups are
interesting; moreover, the expenditures of representative families
during weeks when they were working as usual, together with
those of families who experienced no slack time, lead me to think
that they reflect with fair accuracy the normal proportions in
Homestead.

The expenditure for food, though varying widely both in
actual amount and in its relation to the total expenditure, is al-
ways the largest single item. Among the native whites it con-
stituted 36.3 per cent of the total, and among the Slavs 45.7,
this variation, as in the case of rent, being the result of differences
in income as well as of differences in racial standards. The
percentage for food steadily grows smaller, as the total of all
expenditures which a family is in position to make grows larger.
Food constituted 45.3 per cent of the total among those who spent
less than $12 per week and only 36.7 per cent among families
spending $20 or over per week. The percentage in the two inter-
mediate groups, considered jointly (that is, from $12 to $19.99)
was 42 (Table 17). These percentages for food expenditure are
about the same as those secured in other investigations of costs
of living. Mr. Chapin gives the percentage in families with
incomes ranging from $600 to $1000 (that is, from $12 to $20 per
week) as varying between 44.3 and 45.6 per cent.* According to
an investigation made by the Federal Bureau of Labor, 5920
families with incomes from $600 to $1,000 spent from 39.9 to
43.48 per cent.f

It is only proportionately, of course, as shown in percentages,
that food expenditures grow smaller as families have more to spend.
Actually, families with budgets over $20 per week spent twice
as much money for food as families with budgets under $12, —
$9.38 per week as against $4.16. The most meagre family ex-
penditure of all was among the colored day laborers earning under

♦Chapin, Robert Coit: The Standard of Living among Workingmen's
Families in New York City, p. 70. New York, Charities Publication Committee,
1909. Russell Sage Foundation Publication.

f United States Commissioner of Labor, 18th Annual Report, 1903, p. 101

homestead: the households of a mill town

table l6. — average weekly expenditure for food of 90
budget families and per cent of total expenditure.
— by racial group

Racial Group

Number of
Families

Average Weekly
Expenditures
All Purposes

Average Weekly Expendi-
ture for Food

Amount

Per cent

Slav. . . .
Eng. Sp. Eur. .
Nat. White
Colored

29
<3
25
23

$13.09
16.97
20.47
12.39

$5.98

7-55
7-44
4.84

45-7

39.1

TABLE 17. — SAME AS TABLE l6. — BY EXPENDITURE GROUP

Expenditure

Number of
Families

Average Weekly
Expenditure
All Purposes

Average Weekly Expendi-
ture for Food

Croup

Amount

Per cent

Under 1 12.00 .
$i2.oo-$i4.99 .
i15.00-f19.99 .
$20.00 and over

23
19

$ 9.17
13.32

'7-59
25.56

$4 16
5.86
7.11
9.38

45-3
44.0
40.4
36.7

TABLE l8. — AVERAGE WEEKLY EXPENDITURE FOR FOOD OF 90
BUDGET FAMILIES. — BY RACIAL AND EXPENDITURE GROUP

Under
$12.00

$12.00 TO

$14-99

$15.00 TO

l<999

$20.00

AND OVER

All
Families

Racial Group

a,53

1*8

Slavs

Eng. Sp. Eur. .
Nat. White
Colored .

14
3
4
11

»4-48

5-93*
4.29

3-33

5
4
1

$5-99
6.39*
5.93
5.40

$8.47

6.48
7.00

17-13

12.45*

9.26

8.45

29
13
25
23

§5-^
7-55
7-44
4.84

Number of families
Ave. expenditure

l4-'i6

$5-86

•7.11

$9.38

16.33

♦The families in the English-speaking European group were much larger
than in the other groups, averaging 7.1 persons per family as against 5.2 in the
Slavs, 4.8 in the native white and 3.8 in the colored families. This influenced
their total food expenditure in the lower income groups.

TABLE AND DINNER PAIL

$12, who averaged $3.22 per week. The amplest was among
English-speaking Europeans who were earning the wages of skilled
men and who in dollars and cents spent four times as much for
food as the former (Table 18). The food expenditure of Slavs
ranged from $4.48 a week for the families under $12 to as high as
$7.00 and $8.00 a week; the native whites from $4.29 to over
$9.00.*

But all such statements as to average food expenditures for
entire households are inaccurate in so far as families differ in size.
Professor Atwaterf overcomes this difficulty by reducing household
expenditures to a per capita basis. In line with his calculations
as to the comparative amount of food needed, we have assumed
that the average woman eats .8 as much as a man, children over
fourteen the same, and children under fourteen, .5 as much.

TABLE 19. — AVERAGE EXPENDITURE FOR FOOD PER MAN PER DAY
OF 90 BUDGET FAMILIES. — BY RACIAL AND EXPENDITURE
GROUP

Under
$12.00

$I2.00-
$14.99

$15.00-
$19.99

$20.00 AND
OVER

All
Families

Racial Group

^"5

s 1

«1

Slav

Eng. Sp. Eur.
Nat. White .
Colored ....

>4
3
4

1-25

.19

.21
.30

5
4
1
6

$ .29

• 19
.19
.24

$.36

•34

?-3>
•35

.36

'3
25
23

$.29
•24
•32
.30

Total Families
Average expenditure .

$ .26

$ .24

• *•

$.29

The per capita food expenditure among our 90 budget
families is shown in Table 19 for both racial and expenditure

*The naive report of the Committee on Trade and Commerce to the Pitts-
burgh Chamber of Commerce November 18, 1909, estimates that a liberal provision
of food for a family of five would in Pittsburgh cost $1 1 .88 a week. See Appendix
IX, p. 238.

t Bulletin 21, U. S. Department of Agriculture.

homestead: the households of a mill town

groups. Here, as in the case of other tables in which the 90 families
have been cross-classified into racial and economic groups, the
subgroups are obviously too small to do more than suggest general
tendencies, which commended themselves to me as noteworthy in
view of many conversations with housewives.

While the expenditure for food per man per day in each
racial group usually increases as expenditures increase, we may
note distinctions among them. The native whites and English-
speaking Europeans spend in the three lower expenditure groups
decidedly less than either Slavs or colored. A reference to Chapter
IV will show that with rent this proportion is reversed, the native
whites and English-speaking Europeans spending larger amounts
for rent in these lower economic groups. That is, their families
seem to have a higher standard of housing, which they maintain
when the income is low by making sacrifices in other lines. With
them, the desire for a good home may outweigh that for more varied
and palatable food. The Slavs, on the other hand, who put up
with poor housing, will not skimp to a great extent on food.*

My inquiry was concerned, however, less with relative ex-
penditures for food than with the question of how well people
could live on the amounts actually spent. The depression did not
enter in here as a disturbing factor, as prices in Homestead
were unaffected by the hard times. Accurate figures on this point
were difficult to secure, but undoubtedly any change would have
been immediately noted by the housewives. Many of them ex-
pressed their belief that prices kept about as usual.

In a study of a number of household budgets in New York
City in 1907, Professor Underhill of Yale estimated that 22 cents
per day per man was in general the minimum for which an ade-
quate supply of food could be procured. f This figure was based
on a study of the nourishing quality of food measured in calories

* See Appendix I, Table 10, p, 204. My Slavic families, moreover, were for the
most part smaller in size. They could spend as much as 25 cents per day per man,
even in the lowest expenditure group, without making the average outlay for food
per family noticeably large.

f "Comparisons between the amounts spent for food by well nourished and
poorly nourished families indicate that in general when less than 22 cents per man
per day is spent for food, the nourishment derived is insufficient." Report on
Nutrition Investigation, Frank P. Underhill, Ph. D., in Chapin, The Standard
of Living among Workingmen's Families in New York City, p. 319.

TABLE AND DINNER PAIL

and proteids; the former representing the heat-producing fats
and sugars, and the latter the tissue builders — meat, bread, beans,
etc. Careful experiments have been made to determine both the
amount of each of these elements which given foods contain, and
also the amount necessary to keep a man in a condition of physical
efficiency. Having before him the actual costs to the housekeeper
and the nourishing value of the articles eaten by certain house-
holds, Professor Underhill was able to estimate for what sum the
ordinary purchaser could secure a sufficient amount of food to
maintain a male adult in physical well-being.

By the use of Professor Atwater's ratios as to the relative
amount of nutrition needed by men, women and children, such a
standard per man per day affords a test of how well the food
purchased by a family meets its physical needs.

As we have seen that the Federal Bureau of Labor Report
for 1907 rates food prices very nearly the same in New York and
in the Pittsburgh district,* and as there were no indications of re-
ductions in the local markets during the weeks of my inquiry, we
may accept Professor Underbill's standard of 22 cents a day as
fairly applicable to our Homestead budgets of the same year.

Recurring then, with this standard in mind, to a closer
scrutiny of actual expenditures for food among English-speaking
Europeans and native whites, we find (Table 19) that the average
cost of the former was 24 cents per day per grown man, and that
of the latter 32 cents. As was to have been anticipated, families
with few children and comparatively large incomes spent gener-
ously for food (from 28 to 39 cents per man in the higher expendi-
ture groups). But the average for all English-speaking Europeans
(24 cents) barely exceeds the amount necessary to supply sufficient
nourishment even with wisdom in the choice of food. The average
in both racial groups for those spending less than $1 5 per week fell
below that amount.

* To apply proportions rigidly, the Pittsburgh district minimum would be
22.9 cents. No attempt was made by the writer to carry on independent experi-
ments in food values as to Homestead dietaries. An analysis was made of the food
expenditure of an exceptionally thrifty housekeeper, however. So far as esti-
mates for proteids and calories can be drawn from account books, without weigh-
ing the actual food stuffs used, this indicated that even with careful purchasing,
less than 22 cents would not provide the standard of nourishment in Homestead.

homestead: the households of a mill town

Altogether, in 21 out of the 90 budget families (Table 20)
less than 22 cents per man per day was being spent for food. Low
wages, hard times, and large families, all were factors in depressing
their consumption below this minimum. Of these families, 14
expended less than $12 a week for all purposes, seven a total of
more than that.

TABLE 20. — TWENTY-ONE FAMILIES SPENDING LESS THAN 22 CENTS
PER MAN PER DAY FOR FOOD. — BY EXPENDITURE AND RACIAL
GROUPS

Expenditure Group

Slavs

English-
speaking
Europeans

Native
White

Colored

Total

Under $12.00

$I2.00-$I4.9Q

i15.oo-f19.99 .
$20.00 and over .

2
2
1

2
2

•4
4
3

Total .

In the case of the seven families whose expenditures ranged
above f 12 per week but whose per capita outlay fell below the
minimum of sustenance, size was an important factor. English
or American families with nine children (one instance), seven
children (two instances), or six (three instances) obviously found
it necessary to economize closely on food if the other stand-
ards of American life were to be maintained. It may be
worth while to note here that I found with all budget fam-
ilies* expenditure for food per person decreasing steadily with
the increase in the size of the family. This was true in each ex-
penditure group. For example, among families whose total ex-
penditures were less than $12 per week, those with two to four
in the family spent an average of 24 cents per man per day for
food while those with five or more in the family averaged but 19
cents. In the $12 to $14.99 grouP» tne Per capita sum fell from
an average of 29 to 23 cents; in the $15 to $19.99 group, from 41
to 24 cents; and in the group spending $20 or over, from 48 to

♦Appendix I, Table 11, p. 204.
72

TABLE AND DINNER PAIL

32 cents. This general decrease is in part due to the fact that
the housewife can buy more economically for a large family, and
also that when the family is small and the sense of economic
pressure less heavy she indulges in more costly articles. With
respect to the lower expenditure groups, the controlling factor no
doubt is that with only a certain fairly definite share of the earnings
available for food, that food must be divided among a certain
number of mouths.

This will be clearer if we look at the case of 14 families whose
expenditures were below |i2 a week and who spent less than the
minimum standard. On the basis of 22 cents a day per man, a
normal family* must spend $5.08 per week on food alone, or 50
per cent of the earnings of a day laborer working the ordinary
ten-hour day of the yard laborers in the mill. This is in excess of
the percentage which any group studied allowed for food. Unless
such a man works overtime or Sunday, or the family supplements the
man's earnings by lodgers, lives in a court, or has few or no children
(with the Slavs one or all of these factors are often present), t this
allowance for food must be cut down if the other items of
expenditure are to be met. Among these 14 families, there
were some whose income was always at this low margin, as
well as some whose weekly expenditures had been depressed by
temporary lack of work. The necessity to cut down on food is the
same in one case as in the other and as a matter of fact, omitting
the Slavs, half of all budget families whose expenditures were
below $12 a week, spent less than the sustenance standard for food.
Where the family is above the normal in size, this pressure is
accentuated.

It is conceivable that a desire to save might lead a family to
be niggardly in its food expenditures; though the Slavs, among
whom we would first look for such practices, due to their keen
desire to lay by money, averaged 25 cents per man per day in the
under |i2 group. A more extensive study would no doubt have
elicited cases where drunkenness, shiftlessness, sickness or other

* Man, wife, three children under 14. See U. S. Bureau of Labor, 18th
Annual Report, p. 20.

f Two other alternatives are for women or young children to go out to work —
alternatives not present to any extent in Homestead.

homestead: the households of a mill town

immediate causes of small or squandered earnings reduced a
family's food expenditures below this standard. A consideration
of these tables, however, has shown us unmistakably how near to
the line of under-nourishment must be the families of large size
or low incomes. More important than that 21 families fell below
22 cents for food, is the fact that, including the Slavs, the average
"expenditure for food of all our budget families spending from $12
to $14.99 Per week was but 24 cents per man a day. That gives a
margin of but two cents a day which can only too quickly be lost
through a housewife's failure to get the most for her money at
market, to select nourishing food, or to secure the nutrient values
out of what she puts on the stove. In view of the occurrence of
the hard times, these figures should not be taken as an accurate
expression of customary food expenditures in Homestead in pros-
perous years. They do show what Homestead housewives felt it
necessary to spend for food when they were economizing.

We must remember, also, that many unskilled housekeepers
cannot provide enough nourishment on a minimum outlay requir-
ing wisdom in the choice of food. The sufficiency of food pur-
chased cannot be measured altogether by the amount spent.
Perhaps in this expenditure more than in any other there is a
chance for women to display their skill, an asset which must be
included in the family resources. Two households, undoubtedly
extreme types, will serve to illustrate this point.

The first was a Scotch family of seven who had been in this
country for about fifteen years. Besides the three younger chil-
dren in school there were two sons at work, whose wages brought
the family income up to $32 a week. The six-room house was
none too large to make them all comfortable and enable them to
have a pleasant sitting room. As I stepped into the kitchen one
frosty morning, I was greeted by the odor of preserves which the
wife was making ready to vary the monotony of dinners to be
eaten from a " bucket." We fell to discussing methods of economy
and she told me many of her thrifty ways; about the pig they
would buy as soon as cold weather came, to provide salt pork and
ham for the winter; the pickles and preserves she was putting up;
the I50 she was saving to buy the winter's supply of dry groceries
from the wholesaler's. That this thrift did not amount to par-

TABLE AND DINNER PAIL

simony was shown by the good gas range and washing machine in
view, and by evidences of ample provision of food. By planning
ahead, by extra labor, by wise buying, even luxuries were secured
on a food expenditure of only 24 cents per person a day.

The other extreme was shown in the home of a poor, unin-
telligent woman who had gone to work at the age of eleven, and
could neither read nor write. As enough to pay the rent was the
only contribution to the family purse made by her husband, a
ne'er-do-well, she herself was obliged, by washing and by taking
a lodger, to provide money for food and clothes. This money,
which averaged $4.50 a week, was very irregular, as the lodger was
frequently out of work. With a wayward boy in school and a
sickly baby at home, she had but little time and thought to give
to housekeeping. Food was bought daily by the five and ten
cents' worth, — pork chops, cheap preserves at ten cents a jar,
two quarts of potatoes, a loaf of bread, etc. — a pitiable record
viewed either from the standpoint of the children's health or of
the pocket-book. The least nutritious food was bought in the
most expensive way, because of ignorance and of a small and
uncertain income. The items of her expenditures (at 25 cents
per day) were deficient in the elements which provide heat and
energy to the body, and lacking in the foods which replace worn-
out cells. The sample week's account from each of these budgets
on page 76 shows the contrast in their methods of buying.

Usually the housekeeper buys a large order of supplies on
Saturday and supplements it during the week with additional
purchases of meat, vegetables and other foods. Among Home-
stead women no subject provokes discussion more readily than econ-
omy in buying. Some claim that the chief evil of Homestead
life is an extravagance fostered by the ease with which families buy
on credit. As the accounts run for two weeks and are settled on
" pay Friday," the family never catches up. A number of women
expressed their conviction that when prices of articles like butter
and eggs are not constant, the grocers are inclined to overcharge
a little for goods on credit. Moreover, it is much easier to be
extravagant when no cash is paid out and the price is simply
jotted down in the "book." A woman who tried this method
once, found it so expensive that at the end of two weeks she
threw the book into the stove and would never use one again.

homestead: the households of a mill town

TABLE 21. — ITEMIZED ACCOUNT
OF FOOD EXPENDITURES FOR
ONE WEEK BY A THRIFTY
HOUSEKEEPER

Saturday

Milk 08

49 lbs. flour 1.75

Bananas 15

Grapes 25

Cabbage 25

TABLE 22. — ITEMIZED ACCOUNT
OF FOOD EXPENDITURES FOR
ONE WEEK BY A POOR HOUSE-

Monday

Milk 08

2} lbs. beef 30

Steak 30

Pie 12

Tuesday

Milk 08

Tea 60

Cheese 36

2 doz. eggs 60

Coffee 25

Candy 10

Grapes 10

Wednesday
Milk 08

Friday

16 lbs. ham f 2.00

Spices 10

Vanilla 10

Milk 08

KEEPER

Saturday

Bread $ .05

Jelly . .

Coal

Pork (3 lbs.) .

$ pk. potatoes

Cabbage

2 lbs. sugar .

I I

\ lb. prunes .

Can corn

2 loaves bread

\ doz. eggs .

Cooking apples

i lb. butter .

1 lb. cheese .

Monday

Tuesday

2 lbs. boiling beef . . . .25

Can peas 10

Can syrup 10

$ doz. fig cakes 06

Baking powder 05

£ pk. potatoes 15

Bread 05

Pork chops 15

Wednesday

Boiling Beef 15

Barley 05

I doz. pickles 05

Bread 05

Thursday
Can molasses 10

1 doz. rolls 10

Pudding 10

2 lbs. sugar 11

Turnips 10

Tea J lb 15

J doz. doughnuts . . . .05

Friday

Pie 10

Sausage 10

Can corn 10

Bread 05

Jelly 10

TABLE AND DINNER PAIL

Women expressed varied opinions upon the economy of
buying in Pittsburgh. There were those who believed that even
when prices were slightly lower in the city, the saving was more
than counterbalanced by the time and carfare expended in the trip.
Some housekeepers also claimed that low priced goods purchased
from wholesale houses in town were of so poor a quality that it
was not economy to buy them. Then, too, the women felt that
loyalty to Homestead demanded that they purchase in their own
town as far as possible. So, though on Saturday afternoon the
cars are filled with women carrying baskets home from Pittsburgh
markets, the larger part of the purchases are made in Homestead.
Hucksters, who come out each morning with goods from the Pitts-
burgh commission houses, sell fruit and vegetables. Though some
of these men undoubtedly give poor quality and short measure,
the older housekeepers usually find a trustworthy one and become
regular patrons.

Many women show a genuine pride in their skill in buy-
ing and in utilizing different cuts of meat. One woman as-
sured me that it was no economy for her to buy pieces which
contained bones, gristle and fat, since her family would not eat
them. If instead of buying such cuts at 10 cents a pound she paid
15 for solid meat, her money really went further. I shall not
soon forget the enthusiasm with which one young wife described
a special potato meat pie, her husband's favorite dish, which
she made from the ends of steak too tough to use in any other
way. These women are anxious not only to practice economies,
but to conceal them by good choosing and skilful cooking.

When sickness or lack of work reduces wages temporarily,
the amount available for food is lessened. During the depression
I was surprised to see how quickly certain housewives rose to the
emergency in their determination that the family should feel
this change as little as possible. Sometimes this meant a serious
cutting down of the amount essential to physical well-being; at
other times economies were accomplished by foregoing luxuries
and by the purchase of simpler but more nutritious food. Here is
an interesting budget, the two accounts having been kept by the
same woman, one in December, when the man was working stead-
ily; the other later in the winter when, having lost his regular

homestead: the households of a mill town

employment, he took laborers' work at little more than half his
former pay. While the cost in the second account dropped
noticeably, a rough calculation indicates that the nutrient value
remained almost the same. This was accomplished, at least in
part, by doing without meat and with less fruit, both expensive in
proportion to nutrition.

TABLE 23. — TWO WEEKLY

FOOD BUDGETS OF A THRIFTY FAMILY

(1) Account When Man Worked on

(2) Account

When Man

Full Pay

Worked on Half Pay

Article

Cost

Pounds

Cost

Pounds

Meat .

$1.81

1 2. 1

$0-75

5-7

Beans.

.06

■5

.06

•7

Milk . . .

.11

2-7

.30

1 0.0

Cheese

.12

.06

•3

Butter

.21

1.2

'•3

Eggs . . .

•>7

2.6

Flour.

.14

2-3

.42

10.3

Bread.

•47

5-5

•3'

3-3

Potatoes .

.21

12.0

Turnips, etc. .

.05

2.2

.10

3*6

Green veg.

Canned veg.

•35

2-5

.1 1

i-3

Fruit .

.62

20.3

.40

12.0

Sugar.

•3"

.28

9-3

Sundries .

.58

•42

Total . .

l5-n

69.8

?3.84

60.4

Such economy is usually instinctive rather than the result
of special knowledge or interest in food values. Both in good
times and bad times this woman failed to give her family sufficient
of the tissue builders. The housewives expressed some scorn of
the theoretical aspects of the problem as taught in the cooking
classes of the Schwab Manual Training School, feeling that prac-
tical experience was of more value than any theory. As the girls
who attended the cooking classes were many of them only in the
grammar grades, they probably did not make clear at home the
everyday applications of theories expressed in unfamiliar terms.
Proteids and calories seem to bear so little relation to pork and
beans.

TABLE AND DINNER PAIL

The four prize housekeepers I knew were daughters of
Pennsylvania farmers. They had learned as country girls how
to work, how to provide, and how to economize, and how at the
same time to create a real home atmosphere. Girls, on the other
hand, who had worked in factories or been clerks, lacked the
practical training necessary to help them solve the problems
awaiting the young wife of a wage-earner. To my surprise also
I found that in some instances domestic service was a no more
satisfactory preparation for housekeeping. I remember a kitchen
where all was wretched, the children unwashed, the woman
untidy, the room unswept. Though the man earned $3.20 a
day, his wife, trained as a servant in a wealthy home, had learned
extravagant ways and realized helplessly that she could not "get
caught up" with her bills, manage her home efficiently, or train
her children. "He doesn't see," she said, "why it is though he
earns twice what he did when he married me, we are still behind,
and he doesn't even carry any insurance."

The task of solving these problems demands, as already
suggested, no mean degree of patience, of practical skill, of intelli-
gence and interest. We demand that the worker save, and forget
that this often can be accomplished only by constant, intelligent
watchfulness on the part of the wife, or by doing without some
of the essentials of a normal, healthful life.

The marvelous success of some women should not blind us
to the fact that they are exceptional housekeepers. After watch-
ing the busy lives and the problems of these women, I came to
believe that the woman who can keep her home healthful and
attractive on $15 or less a week has in her elements of genius.
Many a woman who can keep house fairly well on an income that
does not require close economy would find herself, I am sure,
sadly at a loss to maintain a satisfying table on 25 cents a day
per man — the level upon which, in a period of hard times, my
"under $15" budget housekeepers managed their expenditures for
table and dinner pail. If these per diem tests are indicative, this
would allow little more than enough to maintain the physical effi-
ciency of a workingman's household even with the most skilful ex-
penditure; a margin of only 15 cents a day to make good any lack
of skill, or to provide a leeway for the purchase of appetizing

homestead: the households of a mill town

trifles. A round of food chosen solely for its value in proteids
and calories would be an undue tax on the housekeeper's brain.
Only skilled housekeepers can set a table that is both nourishing
and appetizing for such a sum.

Buying nourishing food at a small cost is not a task com-
pleted once for all. These are three-times-a-day problems.
Even the most skilful fail at times to buy wisely, and what is to
be anticipated for those whose large families make such heavy
demands on them that they are unable to find the time to plan
and provide ahead of the need; those with an uncertain income;
those especially who are just incapable and unintelligent? If
vigilance is relaxed or if some disaster lessens income, the food
supply is bound to fall below what is essential.

CHAPTER VI

OTHER EXPENDITURES: THE BUDGET
AS A WHOLE

THE vital problem which in normal times confronts these
homemakers is not provision against physical destitution.
With the wages given in the steel mills, that may safely
be assumed for the families of the English-speaking workers. The
question is whether when they have met their rent and food bills
there is money enough left to provide for the other vital needs of
mind and body.

The answer to this question was partly revealed by a study of
the detailed items of expenditure from which the accompanying
tables were drawn. Once the food and rent account had been
paid, the margin for other family expenditures, during the period
studied, ranged from $3. 14 a week in the group spending under $12,
to $12.45 among those spending over $20. This margin increases
proportionately, as well as actually, with increased income; for
while only a little over one-third of the expenditures of families
spending under $12 goes for other needs than food and shelter,
the proportion in the higher groups approaches one-half of the
total outlay. At every level, this increasing margin must be
distributed among three main spheres of expenditures: (1) for
other home and personal needs, such as fuel, clothing, furniture,
service and minor housekeeping items, through which, no less
than through rent and food, the family expresses its household
standards; (2) sundry outlays for social purposes such as edu-
cation, recreation, religion and the like, through which the family
shares in the community life; and (3) savings and insurance
through which the family provides for old age or for such emer-
gencies as sickness, accident and unemployment.

Since the margin is often not large enough to provide equally
for all these ends, each family reveals something of its inherent
6 81

homestead: the households of a mill town

character by the choices it makes. One family chooses present
pleasures as against the comfort of owning a house; one mother
music lessons as against pretty clothes for the children. In each
sphere some items are regarded as essentials, and others as non-
essentials.

As between expenditures in these three directions then,
not only the contents of pay envelopes, but the individual prefer-
ences of families within the various expenditure groups, play an
important part. I shall not attempt to discuss the relative
expenditures for such purposes, complicated as they were by the
occurrence of the hard times,* but rather to suggest to the reader
some things which influence the decisions made by a family, and
indicate how far incomes at the different levels may permit of ra-
tional expenditures one week after another in all these directions.

The tables and general discussion will mean more if the facts
concerning the expenditures of a few families are first noted,
bringing out some of the distinctive items which fall into individual
budgets:

Stone. A colored family of five, the man a teamster
earning $12 a week, had an average weekly expenditure
of $12.24 during the time the account was kept. Rent, $2.00;
food, $6.23; coal, $1.45; washing materials, $ .09; insurance,
$.39; church, $.10; tobacco, $. 08; medicine, $1.09; sun-
dries, $ .86.

Stearns. An English family of five who own their
house had an average weekly expenditure of $12.03. Food,
$6.49; fuel, $ .80; clothing, $ .09; repairing house, $3.58:
insurance, $.39; medicine, $ .19; sundries, $ .59.

Ahearn. An American family of five who own their
house, had an average weekly expenditure of $14.68. Food,
$9.27; clothing, $3.29; fuel, $1.50; washing material, $.06;
kitchen utensils, $ .20; sundries, $ .26.

* For instance, furniture and clothing are not representative items in a
four weeks' study of a family's spendings; still less are they so during hard times.
The extent of savings represented by house-buying on the instalment plan is ex-
tremely difficult to get at. The small expenditure for tobacco and liquor in these
budgets is to be accounted for, at least in part, by the fact that men did not tell
at home what they had purchased. It is to be remembered that in these tables
the basis for classification is weekly expenditure, not normal or actual earnings.
The women usually hesitated to ask the man about his spending money, and as in
the days of slack work they did not know just what he earned it was difficult to
learn of such personal items

other expenditures: the budget as a whole

Roth. Young American couple with one child, had
an average weekly expenditure of $16.96. Rent, $3.33;,
food, $6.19; clothing, $5.30; furniture, $.17; household
expenses, $ .26; insurance, $1.00; sundries, $ .69.

Stillman. Man, wife and two children; Scotch; had
an average weekly expenditure of $18.63. Payment on
house, $5.00; food, $5.19; fuel, $.83; clothing, $1.00;
furniture, $ .87; household expenses, $ .87; insurance,
$2.65; tobacco, $ .53; medicine, $ ."52; sundries, $2.05.

Lester. Family of eight, nad an average weekly
expenditure of $21.09. Rent, $2.21; food, $8.02; fuel,
$.45; clothing, $5.37; furniture, $1.44; household expenses,
$.60; insurance, $.34; tobacco, $.29; medicine, $.75;
sundries, $1.56.

White. American family of five, the man dead but
two sons support the family. They own their house. Their
average weekly expenditure was $21. Food, $8.56; fuel,
$1.00; clothing, $ .39; household expenses, $ .22; furniture,
$2.75; insurance, $2.55; newspapers, music lessons, etc.,
$1.81; church, $.27; recreation, $.14; medicine, $.90;
sundries, $1.15.

Byrnes. American couple living in an attractive
house with bath. Their average weekly expenditure was
$22.57. Rent, $5.00; food, $9.22; gas, $3.42; furniture,
$.80; insurance, $1.02; medicine, $2.50; sundries, $ .59.

Howe. An Irish-American family of five owning
their house. Their average weekly expenditure was $30.
Food, $14.04; fuel, $2.47; clothing, $1.62; washing, $.31;
furniture, $5.57; insurance, $ .66; education, $ .30; spend-
ing money, $ .96; tobacco, $ .34; dentist, $1.25; bank, $2.50;
sundries, $ .10.

The following paragraph gives the total expenditures for
four weeks for everything but food and rent of a family of seven
whose average weekly income was $16.38.

Oil, $ .40; coal, $5.20; interest instalments on furni-
ture, $2.00; lamp wick, $.06; shovel, $.10; basin, $.15;
brush, $.05; soap, $.30; stove and shoe blacking, $.10;
paint, $ .50; broom, $ .35; stockings, $ .35; shoes mended,
$1.55; gloves, $.10; hat, $.10; underwear, $.40; shoes,
$1.40; thread, $ .06; ribbon, $ .28; candy, $.15; carfare,
$.20; insurance, $1.10; medicine, $.10; church, $.08;
"flowers for the dead," $ .60; spending money for children,
$ .36; for boy at work, $1.00; for man, $4.50. Total for the

homestead: the households of a mill town

month, $21.54. This gives an average for everything above
food and shelter of $5.38 a week.

TABLE 24. — AVERAGE

WEEKLY

EXPENDITURE OF OX> 1

3UDGET

FAMILIES FOR VARIOUS ITEMS. — BY EXPENDITURE GROUP

Expenditure

%» v.

*-*

.jf

•5

Group

s
1

8
8

-a

.0-
•3

Under 1 12.00

$9.17

?i.88

$4.16

$.38

$.94

$.09

$.15

$70

$.07

$.20

$.10

$.50

$ 12.00-$ 14.99

13.32

2.29

5.8b

'•■57

.20

•23

•5'

.05

.14

■47 '•

1 15. 00-$ 19.99

'7-59

2-73

7-"

.66

2.10

.36

.18

I.05

.63

.48

..83

$20.00 and over .

25.56

373

9.38

.90

3.36

.80

.66

1.86

.11

.58

4.09

TABLE 25. — RATIO OF WEEKLY EXPENDITURES FOR VARIOUS ITEMS
BETWEEN DIFFERENT EXPENDITURE GROUPS

Expenditure

•51

-C:

•1

Group

8
8

,5*

Under $1 2.00 .

100

IOO

100

IOO

100

IOO

$i2.oo-$!4.99 .

'45

122

141

203

167

222

470

246

366
818

$i5.oo-$i9.99 .

192

•45

171

'74

223

400

150

3'5

480

$20.00 and over.

278

198

225

237

357

889

440

266

570

A glance at Tables 24 and 25 indicates how different items
respond to changes in available income. Expenditures for food,
rent, fuel, and insurance increase less rapidly than do total ex-
penditures, while clothing, furniture, minor housekeeping ex-
penses, medicine, and sundries, increase more rapidly. This
suggests the main distinction made by these people as to what
they consider necessities and what luxuries. There is a limit
below which necessities will not be cut down even when economy
is necessary; the more essential the item, therefore, the smaller is
its rate of increase as more income becomes available.

Undue economy, may result in the lowering of more than

other expenditures: the budget as a whole

purely physical standards. It may also interfere with the de-
velopment of social standards. We are all imitators, and the
inability to have what others have, even when the absence of
the thing is not in itself a privation, reacts on the individual
life by lessening the sense of self-respect and social standing. For
example, to turn to our first group of marginal expenditures, the
development of home life depends in part on having furniture
enough. The front room to be used must be cozy. Fresh cur-
tains, a couch, and an occasional carpet are household effects
which must be currently reckoned with. To secure these, the
instalment dealer is often resorted to. The majority of the people
often buy on the instalment plan though in conversation they
usually admit that it is an extravagant method. As one
thrifty housewife said, "I must have new curtains this spring,
and 1 haven't the money." There seems to be in the main
little difference in the financial standing of the. families buying
on cash and on instalment. It is in fact more often from
those with small incomes that you hear the emphatic statement,
"I won't buy anything unless I have cash for it." It is largely a
question of thrift and the will power to wait for things till the
money is in hand. While the most frequent purchases are such
expensive articles as pianos, sewing machines and couches, with
some families everything even to blankets, curtains, and clothes
are bought in this way. Some married people even start their
housekeeping on this basis, though the more thrifty among them
put off the wedding day till the money is ready. One young
couple began life in a three-room tenement, equipped with preten-
tious furniture for which they had paid cash. The woman showed
me the "mahogany" bed set, elaborately carved, the dining room
furniture and a good kitchen range, which she assured me were
purchased at reasonable prices for cash, the two sets costing re-
spectively $136 and |6o. The bride, who is very proud of them,
feels that they justify the delay in marriage. As she is only
seventeen now, one can quite agree with her. There is little
danger that people whose work is as steady as is usual in Home-
stead, will be unable to keep up payments, and I learned of no
instances where furniture was taken for failure to pay. However,
the decision to buy a new piece of furniture is often a matter

homestead: the households of a mill town

for grave consideration, and an unattractive home may be a sign,
not of indifference, but of actual inability to pay for anything
beyond the merest necessities.

Again, if the need for economy in fuel is too insistent, front
rooms are left unheated, and bedrooms have no stoves. While the
picture often conjured up of the whole family gathered about the
kitchen table in the evening is delightful, the custom has some
drawbacks. It is hard to do "home work" when the baby cries;
it is harder still to do one's courting under the family eye; it is
hardest of all to develop mentally or spiritually when solitude is
impossible. While these disadvantages result from overcrowding,
we must remember that an economy in fuel also which makes
some of the rooms useless during the winter months has the same
results.

The same desire for social sanction which finds expression
in the ambition to have a well furnished parlor affects the ex-
penditures for clothes. The woman referred to earlier who did
not save because she wanted her children to dress as well as others
exemplifies the strength of this desire. Providing clothes is an
ever present task to many women, especially to those with growing
daughters. One woman who had a home to keep on $2.00 a day
achieved remarkable results in economical and attractive attire
by buying remnants at bargain sales and making them herself into
tasteful dresses. She was rewarded by the pleasure given to her
three girls, — yet the strain of overwork in the long run wore her
out, mind and body. It is not fair to look only at results and not
count the cost, to say that because women can keep attractive
homes on low wages we are justified in expecting them to do so,
unless we know what may be the physical and mental outcome
of their struggle.

Some leeway in household purchases is a definite help to
overburdened housewives. For example, under minor house-
keeping expenses is included not only the item of kitchen utensils,
washing materials, etc., but also of personal service. To pay for
sewing is possible only in rare instances, so clothes are either made
at home or bought ready-made. Except in families having an
income of over $20, the washing is rarely done out, unless there
is sickness. Housework may be materially lightened by the use

other expenditures: the budget as a whole

of gas instead of coal, and in Homestead, with its supply of natural
gas, the relative cost is not great, — only thirty cents a thousand
cubic feet. But even with care its use for baking, washing and
ironing, as well as heating, makes the bills grow, and an income of
$12 a week does not permit a gas bill of I2.50 a month, — that of
one careful housekeeper, — nor the purchase of gas ranges. Again,
$15 washing machines, which families with larger incomes fre-
quently have, serve to lighten the tedious task of keeping clothes
clean in a smoky mill town. Incidentally, they make it possible
for the man to help, since not uncommonly "the mister" when
working at night "turns the machine" before going to bed in the
morning. In one family the husband had attached it to the
hydrant so that the water served as motive power and turned the
machine while the woman attended to her other duties, — a great
advance over the back-breaking washboard. These four items,
then, of fuel, furniture, clothing and housekeeping expenses, rep-
resent specifically the financial problems the woman must meet.
To reduce them is her special economy, and freedom to increase
them relieves her in part of that monotonous and constant strug-
gle to make the home attractive on the man's earnings.

One interesting point in Table 25 (page 84), is that expenses
incurred for health (which may well be grouped with these other
home expenditures) count as a luxury to be indulged in only with
increasing income. When, for instance, a child is ill, the state of
the pocket-book, no less than the seriousness of the disease, deter-
mines whether the doctor shall be called. Tonics for the rundown
in spring time are dispensed with in a laborer's home. Perhaps
the tendency in this direction that is most serious in its results,
is the custom of relying upon midwives in confinement. While
this is more frequent among the foreigners (the abuses associated
with it will be referred to in Chapter XI), many English-speaking
women call in midwives because their fees are much smaller and
because they help in the housework. There are no visiting nurses
in Homestead whose assistance can be secured for an hour or so.

Under "Sundries" (Table 24) are grouped not only miscel-
laneous items which fall under no other head, but those that
might be called the social expenses of the household ; those which

homestead: the households of a mill town

enable it to bear its part in the community life, — expenses for
church, education, newspapers, and recreation of all sorts. Two
accounts taken at random will illustrate the variety of needs to
be met by this allowance. In one colored family where the man
earns $2.10 a day the expenditure of $1.65 a week was as follows:
Candy, I.05; toys, $.20; garden seeds, $.11; carfare, (.12;
postage, $ .01; school, $ .30; church, $1.00. In another family
where there are six children, and the income was about I3.00 a
day, the expense for sundries for a week was but $ .70: Candy,
f .09; carfare, $ .20; lunches away from home, $ .14; shoe
polish, etc., $ .08; bird seed, $ .02; repairing wringer, $ .12;
amusements, $ .05.

Fortunately public school education is not a direct expense
to the household in this country, but outlays for newspapers,
books and, in Homestead, membership in the Carnegie Club are
to be included. Many people take one of the two local papers
which, though they contain the more important general news,
are largely devoted to town matters, including a good deal of
neighborhood gossip. The second-rate stories and anecdotes on
the inside pages form a substitute for cheap magazines. These
papers, while possibly financially independent are, as far as I
could see, over-loyal to that industry which has created the town's
prosperity and are lamentably weak as exponents of the real
sentiments of the workers. The dues of $2.00 a year in the Car-
negie Club, entitling one to membership in all classes, are within
the reach of almost all, and probably do not deter many from
joining. Library books are free and good current magazines,
including those treating of the manufacture of iron and steel, are
in the library. The members of the family, therefore, may have
books to read, even if they cannot buy them for the home. What-
ever education the town offers is practically free to all.

A second expense included in sundries is that for church
support. In a recent book entitled Christianity and the Social
Crisis,* the author reminds us that modern industrial conditions
have made it practically impossible to obey the old command
that a tenth of the income should be devoted to the church.

* Rauschenbusch, Walter: Christianity and the Social Crisis. New York,
The Macmillan Company, 1908.

Photo by Tline

Eighth Avenue at Night, Homestead

Photo by Iline

A Nickelodeon Audience in Homestead

other expenditures: the budget as a whole

If only these narrow margins remain for amusements, education,
church and sundries, obviously a tenth for church is quite out of
the question. One reason, Mr. Rauschenbusch claims, why the
church has lost its hold on working people, is because they cannot
afford their share in its maintenance. In the cities this burden
is sometimes assumed by the members of wealthy churches who
support mission chapels, but in Homestead there is no such group
to depend upon if the working people cannot themselves support
the churches. The family whose item for sundries included $1.00
for church was an enthusiastic and pious colored family, but
except among this race and among the Slavs the contributions
for church were pitifully small, rarely more than a few cents for
Sunday school. Upon examining the budgets one realizes why
church suppers and other similar methods of raising money under
the guise of amusements are frequently necessary.

Under sundries come all purely recreational expenditures.
In another chapter are described some of the opportunities for
play and festivity which are open to Homestead people. When
we note that during the period studied, the families whose budgets
ran between $12 and $15 a week allowed themselves on the aver-
age but $1.23 for all sundries, we see how small an amount can be
free at this and lower levels for what could be called amusements.
Ten cents a week for the nickelodeon or for candy, a car ride to the
country once in a while, — these are the possibilities which seem
open to mothers and children depending on a day laborer's pay.

Thus far we have considered the costs of shelter, food,
clothing, and other ordinary charges for maintaining a home,
together with some few further expenditures growing out of the
family's relation to the world about it. Its plans for the future
next concern us. This is my third category under marginal ex-
penditures, and includes provision for the contingencies of death,
sickness, and lack of work. The problems these may present to
the household are readily illustrated.

The Petersons, an American family of five had, with gen-
uine thrift, saved enough to buy their own home and also had
started a bank account. The man was a skilled workman
and earned over $20 a week. A long illness brought them to
dependence on their savings and the sick benefits from two

homestead: the households of a mill town

lodges. For two months their accounts were kept, when their
expenditures had fallen from $20 to $9.35 a week. These
weeks averaged as follows: Food, $4.38; fuel, $ .40; cloth-
ing, $1.41; furniture, $.08; housekeeping expenses, $.20;
insurance, $1.20; tobacco, $ .13; medicine, $ .60; sundries,
?-95-

The Webers's income dropped off with the hard times.
This thrifty German household had a comfortable four-room
house with running water for which they paid $15 a month.
The man was a skilled worker in the mill who earned ordina-
rily $4.00 a day. For four weeks, however, in which they kept
account for me, his earnings amounted in all to but $35, and
this had to suffice for a family of six. They had to let part
of the rent remain unpaid and with this credit added in,
their total weekly expenditures averaged 1 10.48 or $1.49 a
day. Some relatives who were less pinched helped with food,
which accounts for the extremely low table expenditure.
Their expenses were as follows: Rent, $3.75; food, $2.94;
clothing, 1 .27; housekeeping expenses, $ .06; insurance,
$2.52; tobacco, $. 1 5 ; liquor, $ .20; sundries, | .59.

These figures will give some hint of the drastic way in which
a temporary emergency cuts down a wage-earner's income and
cuts out of a family's expenditures all but the most essential items.
With the customary regularity of work in the mill, however,
anxiety for the future in Homestead usually focuses itself on the
possible sickness or death of the breadwinner. The usual way in
which working people prepare for these two emergencies is by
insurance. It is noticeable that the tendency of the insurance
item in the budgets is to increase less rapidly than total expen-
ditures (Table 25, page 84); this form of provision for the future,
therefore, is counted a necessity in Homestead. Both fraternal and
regular insurance are carried. Of the men in the budget families
57.8 per cent held memberships in lodges; 43.3 per cent had
policies in regular companies;* 11 men held two policies, 10

* The social features of lodge membership, to be discussed later, undoubtedly
create a preference for insurance in fraternal orders rather than in commercial
companies; but cheaper rates are also partly responsible for the larger percentage
insuring in the former. The question which, of course, arises as to whether these
low rates are consistent with safety is too large to discuss here. The people them-
selves have usually unbounded faith in their reliability, though 1 was told of at
least one order which had failed.

other expenditures: the budget as a whole

TABLE 26. — NUMBER OF PERSONS INSURED IN 90 BUDGET FAMI-
LIES AND PER CENT OF FAMILIES CARRYING INSURANCE.* — BY
EXPENDITURE GROUP

Total
Fam-
ilies

Companies

Lodges

Number of

Families

having

Insurance

Per cent

Expenditure
Group

Men
Insured

Others
Insured

Men in
Lodges

Others

in
Lodges

of Fam-
ilies hav-
ing In-
surance

Under 1 1 2.00
$12.00-114.99
$15.00-$ 1 9.99
$20.00 and over .

16
19

12
8

10
9

9
16

18
1 1

10
12
1 1

'4
22

•5

81.3

87.5

95-7
79.0

Total

39
(43-3%)

52
(57-8%)

85.5

TABLE 27. — NUMBER OF PERSONS IN 90 BUDGET FAMILIES IN-
SURED IN REGULAR COMPANIES AND LODGES. — BY RACIAL
GROUP

Number of Men
Holding One or
More Policies,
or Uninsured

2
■

8
"J
f

■8

Number

Insured

Companies

Number
Insured

in
Lodges

•O-S

•si

a! "5

Racial Group

1
a

ft,

-C:

,3
1

B
4,

11
0

5
*

Slav . . . .
Eng. sp. Eur. .
Nat. white
Colored

»9

2
4

10
12

3
3

5
3

20
21

69.2
80.0
91-3

2
8

'7
20

«4
5

Total .

1 1

85.6

* It was difficult to secure accurate statements as to the amount of the policies
since, in some instances, industrial insurance and lodge insurance vary with the
length of time a policy has been running, Often the families themselves did not
know the exact amount. No attempt has been made, therefore, to classify insurance
by the amount of the policies.

homestead: the households of a mill town

three, two four, and two five. The two groups overlap, so that
altogether 85.6 per cent of the budget families carried insurance
in one form or another. In no expenditure group did the per-
centage fall below 80.

Among these families the amount expended for insurance,
as well as the proportionate number insuring, increases with
income until the group spending over $20 per week is reached.
The lower percentage in the latter group may indicate that the
families are better able to rely on savings, and find insurance
less essential for burial and sickness expenses. Most of the
policies held in this group called for materially larger death
benefits. It is of interest to note that the two nationalities in
which the largest proportion of families carried some form of
insurance were the Slavs and the colored. Most of the Slavs
carried insurance in lodges rather than in the commercial com-
panies. Some reasons for this we shall see in our later discussion
of the Slavic community life.

One reason why workingmen's families feel so keenly the
need of insuring can be shown by the roll of accidents reported in
the Homestead paper for three typical months, January, February,
and March, 1907.* Fifty-two men were injured during that period
in the Homestead mill, and 1 3 others who lived in Homestead at
the time of the accident, were injured in mills of the United
States Steel Corporation outside of Homestead. Of this total of
65, seven died. Of the remaining 58, 30, or a little over half,
suffered such injuries as crushed feet, lacerated hands, sprained
ankles, — injuries for the most part that laid them up for at least
a week or two. But there were more serious accidents — three
men had a leg or an arm broken, two had an arm amputated,

* In May, 1908, a central committee was appointed by the United States
Steel Corporation to co-ordinate and improve the work of eliminating preventable
accidents on the part of constituent companies. The Carnegie Steel Company
had been one of the most active in this field in the year preceding. The Com-
pany's inspector stated in the spring of 1908 that in seven months he had made
two thousand recommendations for increasing the safety of men. During the past
two years there has been a systematic development of this work. It is but fairly
begun, however, and aside from preventable accidents, there are many which are
inevitable because of the nature of the work. For a further discussion of the
causes and results of accidents in the steel industry, see Work-Accidents and the
Law, by Crystal Eastman, a companion volume in the series of the Pittsburgh
Survey.

tacerateti wf
reuterdAy na ji

had ft * right ha

Taylor, of Bellwood, had I

right foot Injured walls at worm

blacksmith department at I
steal works j-esteron*

John Krlstoff. of Whitaker.
right wrist sprained while
In the 1*0 Inch mill *eaterda#.

had |

HOT METAL FELL IN
WATER AND EXPLODED

Laat evening at 6 o'clock an engine
hauling hot metal from the" mixing
houae to open hearth No. 2. sideewtped
a yard engine near the 48 Inch mlll-
Tne Impact of the collision tilted the
ladle and some of the liquid steel
spilled In a pool of water along the
track, exploding with loud report,
causing a targe number of mill work-
art to ruah to She scene. No one
was Injured, but ewveral had a nar-
row escape from tHe flying metal

»*ph No vie.

suffering from contused wound

the led jfTtsv received white at

the » inch mill yesterdaa..

other expenditures: the budget as a whole

ten were wounded about the face and head, the eyes of four
were hurt, eight re-
ceived internal injur-
ies, and one was par-
alyzed. The accom-
panying clippings
show minor injuries
reported in the Home-
stead papers for two
weeks when the plant
was working only part
time. They further
illustrate how con-
stantly the men are
confronted with
danger.

Along with other
employes of the Car-
negie Steel Com-
pany— in Duquesne,
Braddock and else-
where— the men in
the Homestead mills
have benefited by
the Carnegie Relief
Fund of $4,000,000
given in trust in
1 90 1, "to provide
for the employes of
the Carnegie Com-
pany ... in-
jured in its service
and for those de-
pendent upon such
employes as are
killed." This gift
was made by An-
drew Carnegie at the

John Joaeah ot tfSlURw »Wr,
Mauh>ll, is suffering hum contused
wounds o Ike shoulder and neck re-
vived wtaila at werk in the IX laek
I olli Jaat evening^

TWO MEN INJURED
8T CHAm BREAKING

Two ore* Vert Injured by a chat*.
breaking- In the J2 Inch mill last
eVhoisjg. John Joseph, of Whitaker
Way, w,*s cut about the head and-
body. And John Hoen cut on -the
head and neck. Both w«re given
mwdtcsJ attention, and sent home.

rank Sieto kg
right fcmVJ la* era
OJ»c_jmll l»j»-e

Michael Kan

* of

■sswaasaM

ave-

sue. bad his

kjH

pand

hurt

wBUe

fct work In the

■M

■aaM

day

AT STEEL WORKS

W. N. CriwTord. * foreman" in' the
\Zi inch mill, met with a painful ac-
cident this morning. While walking
through the mill he Tell m a hols and
sustained a contusion of the hip *.nd
head.. After his lnjurtaa were creas-
ed by the company physician he was
able to go to his home on Ninth ave-
nue. Munhall.

John Erana a aieei w newer who
resh.es near FranltfU school bouse,
■AnQi left band laceraled while at
worfc^la jhe iw inch axiil yestercay

John JJcyle. of Eleventh avenue
tension, la suffering from euutused
wounds of the back, recti ted while at
work in the mill yeat*rd*ay.

Thomas Salisbury, of Whitaker
Way, wtio was in lined In the mill
some time ago. <a improving btowly

liertrard "WCOT wtlf Mtwfatv the
Excelsior dusTo.* which he Is a mem
her At his hom* l/d next Kriday even-

FKACTITREO filS *ARJ*.
Nft*f Morris, a well known citi-
zen of 1256 Ravine street, was a vic-
tim of a painful accident yesterday
afternoon at 3 o'clock, while at work
In the steel works He was adjust-
ing a pipe la (be 35 Inch mill In the
boiler house, when he lost bUbalenee
and fell from a platform to the
ground below with sufficient force to
fracture his- >et* arm. ' He was tak-
o the office 'of the company phy-
sicians, where he received medical at-
tention and was later removed to
Mercy hospital.

homestead: the households of a mill town

time of the organization of the United States Steel Corporation,
a "first use of surplus wealth upon retiring from business, as an
acknowledgment of the debt which I owe to the workmen who
have contributed so greatly to my success." The fund was
not intended as a substitute for compensation on the part of
the company. It was intended, to quote Mr. Carnegie, "to go
still further and give to the injured, or employes who were
needy in old age, some provision against want as long as
needed, or until young children can become self-supporting."*
Under this fund the sum of $500 has been paid to the widow
of each workman killed, with $100 additional for every child
under sixteen. To the family of a single man killed, f 500
has been paid wherever it has been shown that he was a reg-
ular contributor to the support of the family. When damage
suits have been brought against the company, these benefits
have been withheld, but only until the cases were decided.
The original plan provided benefits also for all injuries causing
disability for more than two weeks, but these proved more
numerous than the fund could deal with, and beginning in
1905, benefits have been paid from the fund only in cases
where the injuries resulted in disability lasting more than one
year, and in such cases benefits have been paid only until the
injured man could get work. Thus, if a man who had lost a leg
secured a job as watchman, his benefits ceased. In 1907, the
fund paid employes in the Homestead works 111,398 (38 cases)
in death benefits, $2,583 (7 cases) in accident benefits, and
$4,756 (36 cases) in pension allowances. Thirty families who re-
ceived death benefits, six who received accident benefits, and 21
who received pension allowances, were still resident in Homestead.
The Carnegie Relief Fund has been the most notable volun-
tary provision against the hazards of work covering any group of
employes in the Pittsburgh District. Its importance is shown by
the fact that in the case of 42 married men killed in the Carnegie
Company's employ in Allegheny County in twelve months in
1906-7, the company paid less than $500 in 35 instances (about
the treatment customary among the employers of the district).
With the Carnegie Relief benefits added, $500, or over, was re-

*Sec Appendix XI, p. 245.

other expenditures: the budget as a whole

ceived by 31 out of the 42.* But as three-quarters of the cases,
even with this addition, received less than $1000, it is clear that
the bulk of the burden of lost income still fell upon the families
of the killed workmen.

In injury cases, as stated, aid has been available from the fund
only when disability lasted for more than a year. The company
has frequently paid the hospital billsf and sometimes made a
donation, but in a great majority of these cases, even those that
have meant six or nine months of idleness, the families could
not count on any stated assistance.}: For household expenses

♦Table A. — Compensation Paid by Carnegie Steel Company to Widows of 42
Employes Killed in Allegheny Co., Pennsylvania, July i, 1906,
to June 30, 1907
Number of Families Amount Paid

10 0

17 $ 100 or less

8 £ 101 to $ 500

3 £ 501 to $1000

2 £1001 to £2000

2 Over $2000

Table B. — Compensation Received by 42 Widows Entered in Table A, Plus
Carnegie Relief Benefits
Number of Families Amount Received

1 0

5 I 100 or less

5 £ 101 to $ 500

20 £ 501 to £1000

8 £1001 to £2000

3 Over £2000

From Eastman: Work-Accidents and the Law, pp. 160-161.
f A Homestead Hospital was organized in 1907 but the movement received
no encouragement from the Carnegie Company. In addition to contributions
from residents and organizations in the town, it received a state appropriation
from the legislature. It suffers from the handicap of any small hospital, that with a
small number of cases it cannot secure the best appliances or the services of spe-
cialists. Within the last two years the Carnegie Steel Company has put up, near
the mill, a one-story emergency hospital with an operating room and two or three
beds. Here cases can be treated that require only immediate attention or that are
not in condition to be carried to the West Pennsylvania Hospital in Pittsburgh.

X In April, 1910, announcements were made of sweeping changes establish-
ing a stated system of relief. The f 4,000,000 of the Carnegie Relief Fund has been
united with an $8,000,000 fund set aside by the United States Steel Corporation
and will be used to provide pensions for superannuated workmen. Distinct from
this the Corporation announced a plan for the relief of injured workmen and the
resident families of those killed in work-accidents (for details see Appendix XII,
p. 249) which provides far more adequately for these emergencies. The amounts
given, however, do not make up for the income loss entailed by death or permanent
injury. They afford a systematic scheme of relief from want due directly to in-
dustrial causes, but insurance must remain an important item in the family budget,
as a safeguard against natural causes of death, and also if a family's standard of
living is to be maintained subsequent to serious or fatal accident to the breadwinner.

homestead: the households of a mill town

during such periods they have had to depend on savings, the
help of friends, or on sick benefits. Therefore, for protection
to their families against death and injuries they have turned to
insurance. One woman told of a serious accident her husband
suffered in the mill in the first year of her married life. He was
unable to work for three months and during that time the $12.50
a week he received from three benefit orders supported the family.
"My baby came then," she added feelingly, "and if it had not
been for that money, I could not have bought clothes for her."
The frequent accidents, moreover, have tended to keep insurance
rates high in Homestead so far as the men are concerned. Not
long ago one of the largest industrial insurance companies, the
Prudential, made a first-hand investigation of work hazards in
steel mills in order to put its policy rates on a sound footing.
With the exception of superintendents and office men, it no
longer accepts steel workers as first-class risks.*

Among the budget groups the average weekly insurance
payments ranged from $ .70 to $1.86. To put in concrete form
what such weekly insurance expenditure means in actual benefits
for the family, we find in the Home Guards, for example,
that a weekly premium of $ .35 for a man whose occupation puts
him in an intermediate grade, allows a sick or accident benefit of
$13.50 for 16 weeks, a compensation of $525 for the loss of two
eyes or two limbs, with benefits for lesser accidents in propor-
tion, and a death benefit of $150. In the Modern Woodmen or
the Royal Arcanum a premium of about $ . 1 5 a week provides
a death benefit of $1000. That is, for $ .50 a week a family can
partially safeguard itself against the loss from sickness or death
of the man, while if there are a wife and three children in the
family an additional $ .25 to $ .40 is necessary, to provide even for
their funeral expenses. So nearly one dollar a week is required
to make modest provisionf against these contingencies, — a large

* See Appendix X, p. 241. Another insurance company which has 3800
industrial policy holders in Homestead states that it makes no extra charge
because of the occupation.

f Compare the English workmen's compensation act which provides that
in case of death the family shall receive the equivalent of throe years' wages. This
for a man earning f 12 a week would equal f 1872; for a man earning $15 a week,
♦2340.

other expenditures: the budget as a whole

proportion of a wage of f 12 or $15 a week. Only those families
whose expenditures averaged $17.59 per week felt that they could
spend as much as that.

It is significant that with the exception of three Slavs, all
the families continued their insurance payments during the period
of depression. One woman told me that her husband could not
afford to keep up his membership in his lodge though they con-
tinued to carry their company insurance, but I heard of no English-
speaking people who discontinued payments entirely. Saving in
any other form during this time was an impossibility, but families
even when drawing money from the bank kept up their insurance.

The marked absence of savings in these budgets was, of
course, inevitable during such a period of slack work. As the mills
had hardly shut down at all for fifteen years, the need for saving
for periods of idleness had not been an ever present one to
the minds of the people. But the thriving business done by the
four savings banks in Homestead in ordinary times indicates that
there is popular sentiment in support of this form of thrift. Four
from which figures were secured had on September 1, 1907,
total deposits amounting to $2,179,624. I was unable to secure
definite data as to the number of budget families having bank ac-
counts, since this was one point on which I found people reticent.
At least ten of those whom slack work threw out of employment,
drew on savings funds. The amounts spent in purchase of homes,
which were discussed in a previous chapter, are of course another
form of savings. Thirteen budget families owned homes and
five were buying them under mortgage.

There was no evidence, however, of any such wide-spread
provision through savings for old age, non-employment, high
school education, or other use, as there was for sickness, injury
or death. For all these latter contingencies provision may be
made through insurance policies or lodge memberships; such
provision for the future is deemed a necessity; and however in-
adequate in amount, it is practically universal in all grades and
groups. But however strong the desire for money savings may
be, it appears that with only a small margin above the sum
deemed necessary for essentials, most families in the lower wage
groups must face a choice between some present comforts and
7 97

homestead: the households of a mill town

enjoyments and the peace of mind which a bank account gives.
Yet in Homestead, as elsewhere, the advantages of such a margin
of ready money are only too apparent. No individual family
income keeps always at its maximum; sick benefits do not equal
wages; cuts in rates are declared without warning, and occasionally
comes a time like the winter of 1907-8 when the whole town has
to face the problems that arise when the mills are running only
part time. Not only were men out of work, but lodgers were
unable to pay their rent. Families who had had washing done
out or a woman come in to clean retrenched by doing this work
themselves. The entire town, therefore, was affected by the partial
shutdown of its one industry.

A number of the budget families suffered from this tempo-
rary decrease of income. To meet it, expenditures in many house-
holds were cut to the quick, money that had been saved was
taken from the bank, and food was purchased on credit. In one
family, for instance, two accounts were kept; one when the man
was working full time, the other when his pay was reduced by half.
The contrast shows that the reduction fell heavily on kitchen ex-
penses (which means an increase in the woman's work), on recrea-
tion, and on sundries.

TABLE 28. — EXPENDITURES OF A FAMILY FOR ONE WEEK IN I907

(normal times) and in 1908 (TIME OF depression)

Year

1
1

1
I

ft.

•1
"5

v>
B
D

•S

a
<o

1907 (Man

working

full time)

*i8.79?5

I.82

f I.OO

*'7

$2.43

f-92|$5

*53

».i9

?.67

1-5'

fi.?6

1908 (Man

working

half time)

10.63

3.85

•73

1.00

.01

4.02

.11

• •

.11

•49

•3'

One woman said, "I believe in cutting things according
to my cloth. What we can't afford to pay for now, we won't
have." In another family the usual income of $19 a week was

other expenditures: the budget as a whole

temporarily reduced to $9.10, an additional $4.72 being obtained
on credit. This I4.72 was the entire amount spent for food for a
family of eleven. During this period, however, they expended
weekly $2.80 for insurance, $2.00 a week for the man's spending
money and carfare (they lived in a suburb), $2.75 for rent, $ .32
for tobacco, $ .82 for gas. Aside from these regular weekly items
their total sundry expenditure for the month consisted of coal hod
and fender, $1.10; a lantern, $ .25; candy, ? .05; a child's coat,
$1.98; a pair of stockings, | .10; matches, soap, blueing, etc.,

$.65.

Apart from economies in all lines, the chief dependence

of these families in supplementing the man's lessened earnings

was credit. Forty-six families were depending upon it for either

food or rent.

TABLE 29. — BUDGET FAMILIES WHOSE INCOME INCLUDED MONEY
DRAWN FROM THE BANK OR GOODS SECURED ON CREDIT. —
BY EXPENDITURE AND RACIAL GROUP

Income Group

Slav

Eng. Sp. Eur.

Nat. White

Colored

Credit

Bank

Credit

Bank

Credit

Bank

Credit

Bank

Under $12.00
f 12.00-$ 14.99
$15.00-$ 19.99
$20.00 and over .

9
3
3

2
0

2
2

3
3
1
0

3
4

5
3
3
0

Total . . .

«7

••

The conditions of town life probably enabled people to resort
to credit more than would have been the case in a larger city.
Since the entire town is dependent on the steel industry, the men
could not find other work in Homestead and were unwilling to
take the uncertain chance of obtaining it elsewhere in a dull
season. There was, moreover, the recurring probability that the
mills would soon resume their normal output. Nor could the
women find employment. On the other hand, both landlords and
grocers knew their customers personally and therefore granted
credit freely to the trustworthy. They felt that the confidence

homestead: the households of a mill town

thus created would help their trade when better times came.
Grocers particularly taxed their credit to the utmost, saying
that they would trust their regular customers as long as the
wholesalers would trust them.

The amounts actually purchased in this way make one realize
how appallingly behindhand wage-earning families get during
long-continued hard times. For example, the 32 families with
an income of less than f 12 a week secured an average credit per
family of $1.09 a week for food; those with $12 to $14, $1.45;
those with $15 to $19, $ .87, those receiving $20 and over, $ .78.
The native whites bought an average of only $ .27 worth on credit,
but the Slavs bought an average of f 1.57; the English-speaking
Europeans, $1.34; the colored, $1.01. As the depression lasted
for more than a year, months would have to elapse before the
families could wipe out their accumulated indebtedness. One
woman in May, 1908, told me that she already had a bill of $75,
with prosperous times still a long way off.

In these emergencies, neighbors quietly helped each other;
but a local relief committee found that few of the older residents
would come to them for assistance, however unostentatiously given.

It was then by means of household economies and by going
into debt, that the majority of families, whose men were wholly
or partly out of work, met the hard times which came to Home-
stead. But we must recognize that these economies often meant
physical hardship and that the accumulated credit was to be a
burden which it would take months to wipe out; that spent
savings put off for a long time the buying of the house and that
children perhaps had to give up another year in school.

The question of how far the present should be sacrificed in
order to guard against future emergencies is raised sharply by
such a period of hard times. That savings are eaten up and
families thrust into debt by long periods of slack work are facts
bound up in the general problems of industrial prosperity and
depression.* But that after fifteen years of almost steady work,

* The United States Steel Corporation stood out strongly against a general
reduction in wages in the industry during the depression. In January, 1908, the
Carnegie Steel Company, however, reduced rates in most of the skilled depart-
ments at Homestead. The plate mill men, for example, received reductions of
from 3 to 22 per cent.

IOO

other expenditures: the budget as a whole

so many families, especially in the lower earnings group, should
be so unprepared to weather the hard times, raises questions both
as to the sufficiency of the normal wages and as to the foresight
of the wage-earners.

What, we may well ask, do savings cost the family of a wage-
earner who earns less than I3.00 a day ? Are they readily possible
without discomfort or meagreness of living, or do they come out
of a food supply none too large to furnish adequate nourish-
ment? Do they come out of what should go for the amusements
essential alike to mind and body ?

Only an exhaustive study of great numbers of budgets
could answer these questions with any finality. The decision in
individual cases between present pleasures and provision for the
future seems to be partly due to experience and partly to tem-
perament. One woman told me the story of the early experiences
of hard poverty she and her husband had endured as children.
She was the child of a widow employed in a factory, and he was
one of a big family on a farm where all had worked early and late.
And now though he is on tonnage rates they save nothing. Aside
from her husband's heavy insurance, their money goes for present
pleasures and comforts, with a conscious enjoyment possible
only to those who have had to do without. With no children to
make the future a problem, they have definitely chosen the plea-
sures of the passing moment. An occasional trip to the theatre,
plenty of good clothes, company for meals, — the money goes fast
enough. In marked contrast is the expenditure of an American
family of five who have the same income. Their house is smaller,
and their festivities are less numerous; besides carrying heavy
insurance, they are saving to buy a home, and at the same time
are giving the daughter music lessons. Their average weekly ex-
penditure was as follows: Rent, $2.54; food, $8.60; clothing,
$2.24; furniture,! .84; household expenses,? .19; insurance, $3.02;
education, $.65; church, $.28; recreation, $.23; tobacco, $.11;
medicine, $ .29; sundries, $ .43. During the period the account
was kept, their savings did not average half a dollar a week.

Interesting as they are, however, such individual cases offer
little more than a glimpse of the personal equations involved.
The average expenditures in the various groups are more repre-

101

homestead: the households of a mill town

Rent.

?i.88

Food.

4.16

Fuel ....

Clothing .

.94

Furniture.

.09

Household expenses

•'5

sentative as indications and enable us to state the problem with
more accuracy. For we have now reached a point where we can
recapitulate our 90 budgets, and see more clearly what they indi-
cate as to the round of possible expenditures open to average
households run at each of the expenditure levels.

In the lowest expenditure group of budget families, the
average weekly outlay was $9. 17, and the averages for the items
were:

Insurance. . . ,f .70

Tobacco 07

Liquor 20

Medicine 10

Other expenses . . .50*

We have certain standards of physical necessities by which
to test what may be secured for given amounts. For example,
rent at $1.88 a week is less than $8.00 a month. In the Slavic
district I found that $8.00 was the cost of the two-room tene-
ments without improvements, facing on courts. Of the budget
families in this group only about a third had running water in the
house, and in two-thirds of these homes there were two or more
persons to the room. This certainly is below the minimum stand-
ard of comfort or health even for a laborer's family.

In the chapter on food expenditures, we found that 22
cents per man per day is the minimum for which a skilful house-
keeper can provide food sufficient to maintain physical well-
being. Thirteen out of 32 families in this group were actually
spending less than the minimum of 22 cents. For the average
family in the group, the expenditure of I4. 1 6 a week furnished just
this amount. For families of normal size, however, — father,
mother and three children under fourteen, — this weekly expen-
diture would allow but 18 cents per man per day.

These average allowances for food and shelter are inade-
quate for normal standards. They include no excess from which
the sum available for the remaining items might be increased.

♦ See Table 24, p. 84. For expenditures of 28 house-renting families in this
expenditure group, see Table 10, page 45. The situation would not be mate-
rially altered if we had taken the average expenditures of the house renters as a
basis for our discussion.

I02

!■

^■^^^^^

E. A— -

^mmm^-A

«_ *•

^. ■

^ . i

On the Outskirts: Munhall Hollow and its smoke-blighted trees in June

Photos by Bine
In the Crowded Section: Three families share the house and seven the yard

Where Rents are Cheap

other expenditures: the budget as a whole

Yet as we analyze the $3.1 1 a week remaining after food and rent
have been secured, we find it obviously inadequate to provide
wholesome living. The needs of the future are recognized in an
elemental way in the 70 cents a week for insurance. For 50 cents
a week, as we have seen, the man could through fraternal orders
secure a death benefit of $1000 and four months' sick benefit yearly,
leaving only 20 cents a week toward burial insurance for his wife
and children.

According to the estimate made by Mr. Chapin in New York,
$100 a year is the smallest amount that will supply sufficient cloth-
ing for a family. Here clothing expenditure for the weeks studied
was less than half this sum. Yet even so, there would remain only
$1.50 a week to cover all family expenditures for fuel, furniture,
recreation and liquor, for support of the church, for newspapers
and magazines, to say nothing of savings for sickness or hard times.
We find then that the average expenditure of this lowest group of
families, $9.17, could not supply in Homestead a "living" for a
family in its simplest meanings. The objection may be made that
as many of these families were, at the time of the study, living on
less than their ordinary wages, these figures (though they are to
be deplored as a level to which the family of a workman may be
depressed even in hard times) do not represent household condi-
tions in normal years. The average weekly expenditure for these
families, however, was but 10 cents a day less than the pre-
vailing wages of Homestead laborers in 1907-8, — $ .i6£ an hour
for a ten-hour day, or $9.90 for a six-day week.* Under the sec-
tion on Slavs (page 140) the analysis of the actual expenditures of
a group of laborers getting an average of $10 per week, during
the period studied, offers further indications that these earnings
do not constitute a "living wage" for a family. They were the
nominal earnings of the great bulk of unskilled immigrants employed
in the mills in the "good times" of 1907.

In the next expenditure group (ranging from $12 to $14.99)
the average expenditure was $13.32 (Table 24, page 84). Though

* If we apply the same percentages for the different items to this total of
$9.90, we find that the expenditures for food would be $4.48 (or 19J cents per day
per man), for rent $2.03 (which would secure a two-room tenement without im-
provements) and a margin for other items of $3.39 as against $3.12 — differences
too small to invalidate the conclusions reached.

103

homestead: the households of a mill town

the problem of supplying the physical necessities may be less
pressing, we find no adequate margin above them for other ex-
penditures. The $2.29 a week spent for rent would provide
three rooms, but without sanitary conveniences. For a family
of five this is very close quarters; more than one-half of the fam-
ilies in this group averaged two or more persons to the room.
Besides the danger to health, especially in time of sickness, such
small and crowded apartments permit no opportunity for pri-
vacy or for social gatherings in the home. Food at an average of
$5.86 a week for the family of five persons gives an expenditure
of 24 cents per man per day. This, as we have seen, at best
allows little leeway for a large family or an incompetent housewife.
In fact, four of the families in this group spent less than 22 cents.
A margin of $5.17 is thus left for clothing, furniture, insurance,
minor household expenses, fuel, liquor and sundries. While bud-
gets covering a period of less than two months are not a sound
basis for any conclusions as to these expenditures, the items as we
find them are at least indicative of the ways in which the margin
above food and shelter may be proportioned. Clothing at 1 1.57 a
week, on Mr. Chapin's estimate, would still not provide the abso-
lute essentials. With $10 a year one could buy little furniture,
except such as would replace linen, carpets, and curtains, and an
occasional article to meet the needs of growing families. The families
studied here averaged less for insurance than did the lower expen-
diture group, with its preponderance of Slavs. Similarly the other
headings show no easy chance for economy as a means of increasing
the amount free for sundries; yet reference to the account of the
families on page 88 shows that the $1.23 a week remaining would
be eaten up so quickly by small necessities that little would be
left for savings or recreation. The items are a fair indication of
what it is possible for a workingman to provide for his family out
of $2.25 a day. The impression to be gathered from a review of
them is unmistakably that of a sub-normal household.

The next group ($1 5-119.99), which had an average expendi-
ture of $17.59 (corresponding roughly to earnings at $3.00 a day
for six days a week), shows a marked increase in these household
items. Rent at $2.73 would provide a small detached four-room
house. But it falls far short of the sum which we estimated would

104

other expenditures: the budget as a whole

secure sanitary conveniences and a sufficient number of rooms to
insure privacy and the development of the home. Nine out of the
23 families in this group were still without running water, and nine
of the families had two or more persons per room. The rise in ex-
penditure for food to $7.1 1 a week, or 31 cents per man per day,
gives a fair margin, though three families, in two of which there
were seven children each, dropped again below the 22 cent
limit. Here a balance of $7.75 is available for the rest of the
budget. The expense for clothing is slightly above the cost
Mr. Chapin estimates as essential, and that for furniture about
doubles the $10 per year of the previous group. Insurance
is also increased to the point where it would secure the modest
provision noted on page 96, though it still fails to provide at all
reasonably against the lost income due to the breadwinner's
death. The gain in sundries, which have risen to $1.83 a week,
marks our first noteworthy leeway in expenditure; it is still too
small, as we have seen, to enable the average family to lay by any
appreciable savings and at the same time permit itself recreations
essential alike to mind and body.

The group spending over $20 a week had an average expen-
diture of $25.56 a week, or above $4.00 a day. Rent at $3.73 a
week or $16 a month provides a detached four-room house without
a bathroom. A house with a bathroom can hardly be rented for
less than $20 or $22 a month. Food at $ .37 per man per day
is plainly ample to supply necessities, and yet one or two accounts
where this amount was spent showed no actual extravagances, if
measured by our American standards. The expenditure for
clothing for this period is the equivalent of $175 a year, for furni-
ture $42. The amount for sundries, $4.09, is more than double
what the previous group had to spend for these items.

We find, that is, so far as this group of 90 family budgets
can show us and at the range of prices current in Homestead,
that only when earnings are $15 a week, or more, can we con-
fidently look for a reasonable margin above the requisite expen-
ditures for necessities. It is only in the group spending more
than $20 that we find that the average family has reached a point
where, without being spendthrift of the future and without undue
pinching in other directions, they can spend enough to satisfy

105

homestead: the households of a mill town

what we should recognize as the reasonable ambitions of an
American who puts his life into his work. The household problem
for the great number of English-speaking workmen in Homestead
whose earnings fall between these two figures, is that of propor-
tioning earnings so that, with the children fed and housed in such
a fashion as to maintain physical well-being, the wife may gain
some leisure from household cares, they may all have some share
in the pleasures and responsibilities of the community, and may
make such provision for future emergencies as their own experience
and that of their neighbors show to be essential. Failure to
attain the ideal should not be considered prima facie evidence
of the unfitness of the family to meet its problems.

For Homestead has its ideals, — ideals of a genuine home
life for the family, if possible in a home of its own, where there
shall be sufficient leisure and attractive enough surroundings to
make it the center for happy lives; ideals of such security as in
time of sickness or misfortune shall enable the home to care for
its own. With the wages offered by the industry many of the
workers can attain these ideals, if at all, only by unremitting work
and inexorable compromises. We find housekeepers facing cheer-
fully the problem of providing wholesome and attractive food, that
shall at the same time be economical, three times a day; giving up
even five-cent treats at the nickelodeon to save for a house. We
find them failing often, failing through ignorance or indifference,
but also succeeding against heavy odds. To the onlooker it is a
brave fight, the braver that it is so full of deadly monotony, a
fight the weapons of which are pots and pans and bargain sales.
In its outcome, however, is bound up the happiness and efficiency
of the next generation.

106

CHAPTER VII
OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

THERE are other and more subtle factors in living together
than rooms or meals. The place in the budget of the
home, amusements, church going, and lodge insurance
were discussed in the last chapter. They are also significant as
expressions of human relationships, and in their activity and or-
ganized forms reveal the character of the people as no account-
book footings can reveal it. The relations of parents to each
other, to their neighbors, and to their children, affect the develop-
ment of household life among the people.

Yet even these relations are in a measure determined by
outside forces. Industrial conditions, for example, determine the
type of family life. In the families here, the women almost
never go out to work — a marked contrast to cotton mill towns,
for instance, where wives and daughters seek employment almost
as a matter of course. This dependence on the men's wages is
due not primarily to any theory as to woman's sphere, but to the
simple fact that the one industry cannot use the work of women
and children. Moreover, in this town where there are no marked
differences in financial status and by far the larger number of
housewives do all their own work, there is not much opportunity
to obtain any form of domestic service by the day. Women
apparently think it wiser to save money by good housekeeping
than to earn a little more and neglect the home. This feeling,
combined with the difficulty in securing work, has developed
the type of family in which the man's wages constitute almost the
entire income.

Among the English-speaking and native white budget fami-
lies * only two women went out to do day's work. There were four

* Appendix I, Table 3, p. 201.
107

homestead: the households of a mill town

of these families who took lodgers, but since the women were
either widows who had no other means of income, or women who
had no children, the presence of lodgers interfered very little with
the household life. As these families averaged only 1.2 persons
to a room their homes were not seriously overcrowded. For the
most part the women, relieved from the task of increasing the
income, use their time and interest to good purpose in developing
in their households a distinctive quality of homelikeness.

The men are inclined to trust all financial matters to their
wives. It is the custom in Homestead for the workman to turn
over his wages to his wife on pay day and to ask no questions as
to what it goes for. He reserves a share for spending money;
otherwise his part of the family problem is to earn and hers to
spend. When the man was at home and I suggested to him that
they keep accounts for this investigation he usually referred the
matter genially to the wife, saying, "Oh, she's the one that knows
where the money goes. If she wants to help you out she can."

Though the men show in general a frank appreciation of
home comforts, they do not always realize all the work behind
them. One wife said, "The only time 'the mister' notices any-
thing about the house is when I wash the curtains." But many
chance remarks showed that the women realize the importance of
keeping the home attractive. One woman compared her husband,
who stayed at home evenings unless they went to "the show"
together, with the man next door who was always going off to
Pittsburgh "on a lark." Her explanation of the difference was
simply, " I always put on a clean dress and do my hair before he
comes home, and have the kitchen tidy so he will enjoy staying.
But she never tidies up a bit." Her kitchen was spotless, with a
bright geranium in the window; that of her neighbor was hot and
mussy and the children were noisy. No wonder the husband
did not care to stay at home; but in a small house with washing
and cooking to do, with babies to look out for, it is often hard for
the housekeeper to have time or energy, after the children are
home from school and the dinner cooked, to stop and make herself
presentable. That so many women do this is a proof of their
energy and genuine ability.

Supper time in Homestead will always be associated in my

108

OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

mind with one family whom I knew. When the men began to
come from the mill in the evening the mother with a fresh
apron on and the two children in clean dresses came out on
the front porch. The children sat on the lowest step until the
father was in sight, and long before I could recognize him were
off down the street, the older one to carry his bucket, the little one
to take possession of his hand. After supper he smoked con-
tentedly with a child on each knee and talked with his wife of
the day's doings. That hour of rest was bought at the price of
a busy day for her; she swept off porch and walk, she washed
almost daily to keep the dresses clean, she had dinner all cooked
before he came. A woman must be a good manager and have the
courage to appear cheerful when tired, if she is to make the even-
ing at home happy.

The thoughtful women are especially conscious that part
of the responsibility for keeping the men away from the saloons
belongs to them. The heat and thirst due to mill work, combined
with the lack of other amusements, make the brightness and
festivity of bar-rooms very appealing, and intemperance is conse-
quently a serious evil in the town. The wives feel that they must
help to overcome this temptation. One woman told me that she
had been brought up to consider it wrong to play cards. She
feared, however, that if she refused to have them in the house,
her husband who was fond of playing would be tempted to go to
the back rooms of the saloons for his entertainment. So, putting
aside her scruples, she planned informal gatherings to play in
the evenings. To her the drink evil was the more serious. There
are many, however, to whom these real homes are not possible.
There rises to my mind, in contrast, a two-room tenement down
in the grimy corner where the mill joins the town. Here a woman
was trying to support four little children by sewing and washing.
Her husband had died after eight years of semi-invalidism resulting
from an accident in the mill. With his small wages they had not
been able to save, and as the injury had occurred so long ago she
was not eligible for a benefit from the Carnegie Relief Fund. The
kitchen was small and hot and the younger children noisy, and
the not unnatural consequence was that the oldest girl drifted to
the streets, mixed with a gay crowd, and eventually became a

109

homestead: the households of a mill town

charge of the Juvenile Court. The girl was not bad at heart, and
had there been a cheerful home where her friends could come, the
end might have been different.

That home life has a strong hold and is a social force in
keeping pure what we call the moral life of the town, is shown
by the infrequency of immorality among these English-speaking
families. There are instances, to be sure, of unfaithfulness among
married people, and there are those who love to retail these bits
of gossip. But even the way in which they are told reveals how
strongly the general sentiment of the town condemns such moral
laxity. It is very rare to hear of girls going wrong. These
townspeople watch their daughters jealously, and make every
effort to have the home the center of life so that the dangers almost
inevitably attendant on public dances and skating rinks may
not touch the girls of the family. I found it part of many a
mother's problem to create such a household atmosphere that
the children should find their happiness in the home rather than
seek it in the doubtful amusements the town offers. They planned,
for instance, to give the children music lessons so that in the even-
ing they might enjoy such gayeties together. In one or two homes
the children had learned to play on different instruments and had
an embryo orchestra. These quiet family gatherings are ap-
parently the source of much pleasure.

However amusing to the chance reader a small local paper
may be, it furnishes some pretty reliable data as to the happenings
in a town. The columns of the Homestead papers describe a
round of birthday festivities and surprise parties for grown-ups as
well as children, and we are assured each time that "the evening
was a most enjoyable one." Music and refreshments, cards and
other games furnish the usual entertainment.

Where the mother is tactful and wise, the lack of amusement
outside the home may have no serious results. But all women are
not geniuses in making their homes happy; some make the effort
and fail, others never try, with disastrous results. And unfor-
tunately, when this attraction fails, as often happens when the
mother does not welcome the surprise party or when the father
resents having the children noisy in the evening, there is little in
the community to take its place. Practically the only public

I 10

OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

amusements in Homestead, during my stay there, were the
nickelodeons and skating rinks. Six of the former, all but
one on Eighth Avenue, sent out their penetrating music all the
evening and most of the afternoon. There was one ten-cent
vaudeville house, but the others charge five cents for a show
consisting of songs, moving pictures, etc., which lasts fifteen
minutes or so.

The part these shows play in the life of the community is
really surprising. Not only were no other theatrical performances
given in Homestead, but even those in Pittsburgh, because of the
time and expense involved in getting there, were often out of the
reach of workingmen and their families. The writer, when living
in Homestead, found few things in Pittsburgh worth the long
trolley ride, forty-five minutes each way. Many people, therefore,
find in the nickelodeons their only relaxation. Men on their way
home from work stop for a few minutes to see something of life
outside the alternation of mill and home; the shopper rests while
she enjoys the music, poor though it be, and the children are always
begging for five cents to go to the nickelodeon. In the evening
the family often go together for a little treat. On a Saturday
afternoon visit to a nickelodeon, which advertised that it admitted
two children on one ticket, I was surprised to find a large propor-
tion of men in the audience. In many ways this form of amuse-
ment is desirable. What it ordinarily offers does not educate but
does give pleasure. While occasionally serious subjects are repre-
sented, as for example pictures of the life of Christ given in Easter
week, the performance usually consists of song and dance and
moving pictures, all of a mediocre type. Still, for five cents the
nickelodeon offers fifteen minutes' relaxation, and a glimpse of
other sides of life, making the same appeal, after all, that theatre
and novel do. As the nickelodeon seems to have met a real need
in the mill towns, one must wish that it might offer them a better
quality of entertainment.* Many who go because they can afford

* In New York City a board of censorship passes upon the films, and this has
eliminated any tendency to bid for trade by snowing degrading subjects. In the
absence of such a censorship, the probation officers of the Allegheny County Juve-
nile Court have protested against pictures exhibited in some of the nickelodeons in
Pittsburgh and neighboring towns. Without supervision some of them become ill
favored resorts.

Ill

homestead: the households of a mill town

nothing expensive would appreciate something better, even at a
slightly higher price.

The other popular amusement was the skating rink, of which
there were three or four in Homestead.* "A marriage on skates"
(apparently a bona-fide one, announced for ten days), masked
balls, races, moonlight skating parties, all cleverly advertised, at-
tracted the young people. While the two large rinks were fairly well
conducted, some of the smaller ones were attended by a rough
crowd. To a certain extent the danger felt in regard to public
dances, bringing together young people some of whom were of
doubtful character, applied also to the rink, and mothers often
refused to allow their daughters to go, unless it was with "our
own crowd."

But some diversion young people must have, nor are their
elders exempt from this need.f Surely with none is the necessity
for stimulus and variety of interest greater than with the men
who turn daily from twelve hours in the din of the huge mills
to home, supper, a smoke and bed.

I have already noted that in this community of 25,000 there
are over 50 saloons and other drinking places, ranging from
"speak-easies" to the conventional bar-rooms with plate glass
and bright lights. It was no part of my study to investigate the
ownership or police surveillance of these establishments, the profits
gathered in on pay nights, or the intoxication which, as we have
seen, the courts prove so ineffectual in controlling. As places of
relaxation, they fill a need not otherwise supplied. The Carnegie
Library has a gymnasium and clubs, but, except for the saloons
and the club rooms of one or two fraternal orders, there are no free
and easy lounging places for refreshment and friendly intercourse.
The Slavs bring much of the liquor they buy home and drink it
sociably there, many of them being heavy drinkers. The budgets
gave no basis for a conclusion that English-speaking Homestead
men are hard drinkers. My inquiries naturally lay among men

* During the hard times of 1908 these were closed and have not been
reopened.

fThe Public Recreation Centers of Chicago, with their dance halls and
club rooms, to which all ages resort, in which the young people are safeguarded
in ways which do not dampen the ardor of their good times, suggest the sort of
non-commercial pleasure places which the mill towns need.

112

OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

with families rather than among the unattached ones, who are
the constant tipplers in all towns. In the homes on the hill
streets I heard almost no complaints that men were drunkards,
though many men undoubtedly, in good times, spent money that
way that was needed for the household budget. An old resident
said that among the older stock he could name perhaps a half
dozen men known as drunkards in the town. With hot work to
whet thirst, and with the natural rebellion of human nature against
the tension of long hours, the liquor interests have exploited
the needs of the adults for recreation and refreshment. It is
true that they have not really met that need, and have exploited
the opportunities they offer; but it is equally true that the need
is met in no other way.

Outside of home festivities and the meagre or commercialized
public provisions, the chief dependence for sociability is on the
lodges, churches and other voluntary organizations.

In Homestead, as in other working communities, we find
benefit organizations playing a prominent part. In one day's
paper, 50 meetings of fraternal orders were scheduled for one week.
Facts were secured concerning 23 out of a total of perhaps half a
hundred lodges. The 23 had a membership in 1907 of 3663; of
these 3400 were men. Almost all the organizations include both
social and benefit features. The Order of Elks, which has no reg-
ular benefits and is a purely social organization, nevertheless gives
generous assistance to members in distress. On the other hand
the fraternal insurance orders, such as the Protected Home Circle
and the Royal Arcanum, are important, not only because they help
provide for the future, but because they provoke social intercourse
in ways which help make this form of insurance popular.

The lodges seek to arouse the sense of fraternity and common
interest which otherwise finds little stimulus in the town. The
following paragraphs from the prospectus of the Modern Wood-
men reveal this purpose:

While the beneficial (or insurance) department of the
Modern Woodmen Society is admirable — is, indeed, as over
1 1, 200,000,000 of insurance in force proves, of vital im-
portance to the man of family — yet Woodcraft's fraternal
feature is in reality the basal stone of the Society's existence.
8 113

homestead: the households of a mill town

The world needs more genuine fraternity. There is a
power of comfort in brotherly sympathy extended in time of
distress. The kindly visit and solicitude of a Neighbor for
one lying on a bed of sickness is appreciated. The aid
freely extended to our families when we are so unfortunate
as not to be able to help them ourselves is truly fraternal —
Christ-like. None of us are so strong or so fortunately situ-
ated that there may not come a dark hour, when we will
require assistance and sympathy. It is comforting to know
that in such an hour we need not appeal for Charity, but
we may command the kindly ministrations of our fraternal
brothers — our "Neighbors" of the Modern Woodmen of
America. They solemnly obligate themselves to extend
such aid and you will receive it if you stand in need.

But in addition to this general sense of brotherliness, the
lodges supply some of the good fun which Homestead craves. Be-
sides the regular meetings, they have summer outings at Kenny-
wood Park and elsewhere, dances and card parties in the winter,
whereby they raise money for some charitable purpose, for the
lodge expenses or, as a special benefit, for some member who is in
peculiar distress. These ends do not lessen the real enjoyment
in the festivity itself, though they form, of course, an extra tax.
Even the business meetings are a source of pleasure, and help de-
velop a spirit of neighborliness.

To the women especially, whose duties keep them at home,
the lodge offers almost their only chance to meet other people
and get for a few minutes into a different atmosphere from that of
household tasks. Some housekeepers are firmly opposed to lodges
on the ground that as they take time they must result in neglect
of the home. This was also the opinion of a man whose wife
had announced that she could see no objection to woman suf-
frage, since women could learn how to vote by going to meetings.
"Well," he retorted feelingly, "if you went to any more I don't
know when 1 should get anything to eat." Another woman who
belonged to four lodges and attended on an average two
meetings every week considered them the pleasantest part of life,
while her attractive home indicated that they did not inter-
fere with her household duties. On the whole, the lodge meetings
■ffond a genuine pleasure while they make no serious break in the

114

OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

routine of household tasks. Those fraternal insurance orders which
include in their membership both men and women serve also as a
center of common family interest.

The meetings, however, are probably of most value to the
men, since Homestead has comparatively few other organizations
to bring men together. There are no unions to give a sense of
common interest, and the political organizations are largely domi-
nated by a few gangs. The lodges form really the only clubs.
The most successful one in the town is the Odd Fellows with a
membership of about one thousand, mostly steel workers, and a
building of its own. It is probably the most influential organ-
ization in Homestead. As the dues are not large and the sick
benefits are comparatively generous, many can afford to join.

The associations not only arouse fraternal interest in fellow
members, but also offer at times the means of expressing sympathy
with those outside their membership. During 1908, for example,
many of the orders gave entertainments, to raise money either for
the hospital which was being built in Homestead or for the com-
mittee which cared for those in need during the industrial depres-
sion. As I went into one woman's kitchen one day, she showed
me a half bushel basket full of fine, large potatoes scrubbed clean
and ready for baking, which she told me with a good deal of pride
and evident pleasure were her share in a supper her lodge was giving
for the benefit of the hospital. "My husband," she explained,
"isn't in a dangerous place in the mill, but I am glad to help even
if most of the injured are Hunkies." Again, in December of 1907,
within forty-eight hours after the mine explosion at Monongah,
West Virginia, one Homestead lodge had voted a contribution
for those left destitute. This ready sympathy for suffering and
desire to help often find their only expression through the joint
effort of these societies.

Social needs are further met by the churches, which in Home-
stead, as is usual in a town, play a more important role in the com-
munity than they do in a large city. While church affairs and
suppers may not be the best ways to raise money, they offer good
times. "Ten cent socials," for instance, provide a jolly evening
for the young folks; chicken and waffle suppers, advertised often
during the winter, proved to be pleasant, homelike affairs.

homestead: the households of a mill town

The churches also provide a real though limited intellectual
stimulus. One has a large men's club at whose meetings speakers
talk on subjects of current interest. In another church a club
of young men and women has regular debates on sociological
subjects. The church in such ways becomes a center for broad-
ening the life of its members by other than purely spiritual
interests.

The mill-town lodges and churches, though each must work
out its own salvation, are more or less closely affiliated with
larger organizations. It is interesting to see what purely local
societies the town has developed. There are the usual number
of women's clubs, with various objects, from embroidery to
civics. The most prominent and enterprising is the Homestead
Woman's Club, of whose work in conducting a playground and
attempting to secure a kindergarten I shall speak later. These
women's clubs which have formed a union, with a joint meeting
yearly, are centers of interest in the lives of their members.
The members are, however, largely wives of business and profes-
sional men or of those in responsible positions in the mill.*

The young men have formed numerous athletic clubs, some
informal, some with professional teams. During the winter,
basket ball games, both professional and amateur, are very
popular. "The 3rd Ave. team plays the 5th Ave. team" and
similar notices in the Homestead papers show that local rivalry
and athletic zeal go hand in hand. The Homestead "Americans"
have won championship matches all over the Eastern states.
The players are, of course, usually young men. The older men
and those whose work is hard prefer watching. Women when
questioned as to the man's spending money often said, "Well,
he goes to a basket ball game most every Saturday and that's
thirty-five cents." It is perhaps needless to say that in summer
baseball is to the front. There are the usual matches between local
teams, and a " Business Men's League" conducts a series of games
at Homestead Park after business hours. The standing of the
various teams, which include doctors, grocers, steel workers, etc.,
arouses a good deal of interest. The boys, of course, have innu-
merable small clubs, and not infrequently on warm spring days
•See Appendix XIII, p. 264 ff., for a list of the clubs and their objects.

Il6

Orchestra; Carnegie Library

Band Stand
Open air concerts are given here in the summer by the Carnegie Library Band

OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

passers-by are called upon to buy undrinkable lemonade to help
supply the uniforms.

While the clubs connected with the Carnegie Library are not,
in a sense, of spontaneous growth, they may nevertheless be
referred to here, since their particular form is largely a matter
of popular demand. The library, it should be said in passing,
touches the town's life at several points, and I have several times
had occasion to refer to it. To give a more complete picture of
its activities, and of the spirit of the librarian in charge, his
annual report is published in Appendix XIII. There is an excel-
lent gymnasium open to all on payment of $2.00 a year. This
includes gymnasium, swimming pool, bowling alleys, fencing, etc.,
with good instruction. It was very popular with the young men.
Men engaged in either clerical or professional work were found
more often than those doing manual labor in the mill. Many of
the latter (as seems natural to any one who has visited the mills)
say they are too tired after their hours of heavy work. Conse-
quently, they miss entirely the all-round development of gymna-
sium work and the mutual stimulus and refreshment of playing
games together. For the boys, the "gym" offers both fun and
good training.

The library also has had a series of paid entertainments,
conducted by a lecture bureau which offers illustrated lectures,
monologues, humorous readings, etc., at a low price. These were
held in the auditorium of the library, but were only fairly well
attended and later were abandoned. In addition the club has
good musical classes, a band, an orchestra and chorus, each of
which gives at least one free concert a year. The boys play well
and this work undoubtedly helps to raise the standard of music
in the homes.

Aside from the lecture course there was almost no enter-
tainment in Homestead the year of my inquiry that could be
called cultural. The amusements in the main were the simple
festivities of home and lodge and church, narrow in their round.
Lacking the stimulus that comes from bringing a community into
contact with new ideas or new people, they yet helped to keep life
sane and wholesome.

117

CHAPTER VIII
THE CHILDREN OF HOMESTEAD

THROUGH children, more than through insurance, or
savings, or even through home owning, does a workman's
household lay claim upon the future. Here both the
oldest instincts and new half-formulated ambitions find expres-
sion. They have asserted themselves even in a town where the
men have submitted to exclusion from all control over their work,
and where as we have seen they have failed to master the town's
government as a whole. Here the community has set before
itself what it feels to be high standards.

The working people of Homestead when talking of their
children show a distinct recognition of the value of education and
home training, as compared with the immediate money value of
wages. English-speaking parents, at least, do not hurry their chil-
dren to work the day they are fourteen years of age. Of the
17 boys between fourteen and twenty-one, in the English-speak-
ing families from whom budgets were secured, 1 5 were at work ;
but of 1 6 girls, four were still at school and 12 were at home help-
ing their mothers. This last figure is a striking one in view of the
fact that in at least five of these families the man was earning
less than $15 a week; yet even under such circumstances the
parents did not seek to increase their income by sending the
girls to work. A typical case is that of a girl of 18, the eldest of
six children, in a family with an income of $14 a week. It was
assumed to be her place to help her mother, rather than to sup-
plement the father's wages. While the number of families
studied is, of course, not large enough to warrant sweeping con-
clusions, their attitude in this matter corresponded with general
impressions I received in visiting a much wider circle.

In contrast to their general political indifference, the voters

118

THE CHILDREN OF HOMESTEAD

have insisted on efficiency in the one branch of borough govern-
ment which specifically affects their children, and are proud of
having a " good school board" and of having created a public senti-
ment which makes the best men in the town willing to accept this
office. The board included in 1907-8 three physicians, four men
in the steel works, including a steel inspector, two lawyers, and
several business men. Though this board has not adopted all the
modern improvements in school equipment, it has, through its
straightforward efforts to provide good service, secured the co-
operation of the people. So far, school facilities have kept pace
with the rapid growth of the town and there has been a seat for
every child.

The Second Ward school, one of the older buildings visited,
was neither well constructed nor fireproof. The first grade room had
34 double seats, or 68 children for one teacher — an excessive number.
Drinking water was brought in buckets from a well in the yard;
the toilets were cemented privy vaults flushed only by waste
water from the yard and by rain water from the roof, except in
dry seasons when the flushing was done by a hose.* Heat was
provided by sheet-iron incased coal stoves situated in the rooms,
and there was no system of ventilation.

In contrast to this old school, changes in the newer buildings
show that the board is adopting progressive standards. For
example, the Fifth Ward school, the newest, is semi-fireproof and
has excellent lighting arrangements, — six windows in each of the
rooms, — the light in all cases coming from the back and left of
the pupils. It has no double desks, and in two rooms the desks
are graded in size. The heating is by hot air generated by steam.
The building, a two-story one with no fire-escapes, had, how-
ever, a wooden stairway in the center hall, and a fire drill was
introduced only after public sentiment had been aroused by the
Collingwood School fire in Cleveland in which several hundred
children were killed. Graduated desks are still urgently needed,
since the presence in the same school of both native-born children
and newly arrived immigrants results in unusual variations in
size among pupils in the same grade. With more facilities for
bathing and especially with better toilets, the schools also could
* Sanitary porcelain closets were installed in 1908.
119

homestead: the households of a mill town

serve to educate public opinion to demand better sanitary stand-
ards in the homes.

The principal school in Munhall is a more up-to-date struc-
ture than those of Homestead,* being fireproof and built with
iron stairways and sufficient exits. The toilets are within the
building, the lighting is sufficient and the heating system modern.
It contains an assembly hall, though this was used only for school
purposes. The mothers' meetings and little entertainments in
the kindergarten, and the literary exercises held once a week to
which the mothers were invited, served to arouse interest and
bring the women in touch with the teachers. This school is
beginning to have a real influence in the life of the borough. It
is, however, situated on the hill in the most prosperous part of
the town. The schools in neighborhoods where such work would
be more essential are not so equipped.

An outsider, unless an expert, can hardly judge whether
methods of instruction are of a high order or the work of the
teachers efficient. The residents themselves believe that they
are, and take genuine pride in every advance in standards. The
authorities have been less ready to develop the social uses of the
school plants. It is perhaps not surprising that a conservative town
has not introduced such new features as school nurses and medical in-
spection of school children. Parents who are so eager to secure
benefits for their children would undoubtedly welcome such work
were its value made known to them. Superintendent T. M.
Norris of the Homestead schools has expressed himself as in favor
of school nurses in the Second Ward. So far there has been no
effective demand for them, nor has Homestead had the example
of such a public system in the Pittsburgh schools. There has been
less excuse for the belatedness in providing school playgrounds. In
the Second Ward, where a play center has been most needed, the
school has a large yard. Though this would have made a good
playground it was used for games the year of my residence
in Homestead only during the fifteen-minute recess twice a day.
As the school is on the main street only two blocks from the mill,

• Up to 1910 the Homestead High School has been conducted in a part of one
of the grammar buildings. Plans are now under way for building a High School
to cost f 1 25,000. This will have baths, a gymnasium, an assembly hall, etc.

120

•5 tc

►J rt

i =

e °

C £

THE CHILDREN OF HOMESTEAD

Clipping from the Homestead Messenger which was an
interesting bit of evidence of the need for recreation grounds.

the yard proved an attractive spot for loungers and was on that
account closed out of school hours. While paid supervision in such
a location is undoubtedly necessary, the difficulty or expense in
providing it should not have remained an insurmountable obstacle
where a place to play was so sadly needed. The children who at-
tend this school live at the foot of the hill in crowded courts, in
which there is little room for games, and a long climb is neces-
sary to reach
the vacant
lots back of
the town.

For two
years the
Woman's
Club of
Homestead

used this school yard for a vaca-
tion school. They employed teach-
ers to conduct a kitchen garden
and sewing classes, and provided
swings and sand boxes for amuse-
ment. Each afternoon club mem-
bers helped with the work and they
seem to have made it a success. Some
felt, however, that the children who
came were not from families who
really needed this stimulus, and since
the women could not secure an appropriation from the school
board, and had difficulty in raising the necessary funds, they
finally gave up the work. This was unfortunate, for not only
was the vacation school needed by the pupils, but it also was a
way in which the intelligent women of the town could come into
personal contact with the problems of their Second Ward neigh-
bors.*

The boyg of Homestead are sore
at the burgess and members of the
police froce, who they accuse of In-
terfering with their rights as free
bera Young Americans. Last night
a committee of six representing the
First and Second wards called at the
1)ally Messenger office and left the
following which they hope will re-
ceive careful consideration at the
hands of the chief executive of the
borough.

"The boys or Homestead "want to
know why they cannot play basket-
ball on the street, and they want to
know what they can do.

"Burgess please answer in Mon-
days' Messenger."

* In the summer of 1909, a vacation school and playground were main-
tained for six weeks in this Second Ward school yard. A Playground Association
was organized with which the National Vacation Bible School Committee of New
York co-operated, providing the play director. A similar playground was carried
on by the Homestead people in iqio.

121

homestead: the households of a mill town

This same club — the most wide-awake body in the town —
tried also to persuade the school board to start public kinder-
gartens. The members canvassed the town to see how many
mothers would send their children to a free kindergarten, how
many if a fee were charged, and how many with no children of
kindergarten age would contribute toward its support. They
demonstrated by this inquiry that mothers would welcome the
addition of kindergartens to the school system. But when the
request to introduce them into the public schools was presented
to the school board by a member who favored the project, it was
refused. The reason offered was that the board could not afford
the money necessary to maintain the ten kindergartens Homestead
needs. Nor did the authorities recognize their practical value.
It was even said by one member of the board that the women
merely wanted to be relieved of the care of the children so they
would be free to "go gadding."

A similar failure to comprehend the difficulties in giving
proper training in the home and the need for providing it elsewhere,
might have put off for a long time the introduction of domestic
science and manual training. As it was, Mr. Charles M. Schwab,
who was once superintendent of the Homestead works, gave the
town a well equipped manual training school in which the
children from all the schools, parochial as well as public, receive
a half day's instruction a week while attending the sixth, seventh
and eighth grades and the High School. The girls have cook-
ing and sewing classes in alternate years and the boys classes
in sloyd, wood and metal turning. Some of the girls do very
creditable work, drafting patterns and making shirtwaist suits
in their last year. In the cooking class they study the theory
of food values, and have practical cooking lessons besides.
The instruction in sewing the mothers generally approve. One
woman who had been a clerk in a store before her marriage ex-
pressed her regret that she had never been taught at home to
sew. When clothing must be provided for a family of six it is a
distinct handicap to be able to make only aprons and other sim-
ple things. This woman was therefore appreciative of what her
daughter learned in school. Other mothers who themselves
taught their girls to sew did not consider the instruction so im-

122

THE CHILDREN OF HOMESTEAD

portant, yet with all their other cares they were glad to have this
help.

In regard to the value of the cooking classes, opinions differed.
When you turn from the large, spotless kitchen in the school,
with its equipment of modern ranges and elaborate cooking uten-
sils, to the humble kitchen in the home of a laborer, with a second-
hand coal stove and only a few kettles, or even to the modest
kitchens of the more well-to-do families, you understand why
some girls find it difficult to translate into everyday usefulness
the lessons of the school. Moreover, too often the emphasis of
the lessons is on the preparation of fancy dishes, instead of on how
to make cheap cuts both digestible and palatable; and yet, if
girls learn new things which they can make at home, they take
an increased interest in housekeeping. One girl insisted that her
father get her some waffle irons. The family was so pleased with
her first experiment that they now count upon having waffles
every Sunday morning for breakfast. The girl's pride in providing
the treat of the week undoubtedly helped to develop in her a real
enthusiasm for homemaking.

The school stimulates a similar interest among the boys by
giving them a share in furnishing the home; for many of the ar-
ticles made, especially in the wood-working classes, become their
property.

This Schwab school, which is supported by the public taxes,
and is carried on under the direction of the superintendent of
schools, rounds out the town's system of elementary education.
In its maintenance and standards it is a public recognition of the
need for manual training in an industrial community, and in its
work a distinctly progressive spirit among the people is feeling its
way.

In these needs the adults, especially among the immigrants,
share. Evening schools or educational centers would be valuable
to Homestead and welcomed. The plant of the Schwab Manual
Training School could be used in providing courses in domestic
science for housekeepers, and a number of the older women would
appreciate courses in domestic arts. Young men and boys would
undoubtedly take advantage of night courses, both technical and
literary. These wants are met in some measure by the Carnegie

123

homestead: the households of a mill town

Library, which, besides amusements, provides many opportunities
for study. Unfortunately, a class feeling seems to have developed
with respect to the library. The clerical and managerial force of
mill employes make free use of its privileges, but some of the
unskilled workmen expressed a doubt as to whether they are really
welcome. This is not, however, due to the attitude of the direc-
tors, which is cordial to all comers. Nearly 200 students were
enrolled in the educational classes during 1908 besides those in
the musical clubs. Until 1908 attempts to teach English to
foreigners had not succeeded, but in that year there was a class of

25-

The fact that the library is on the high ground in Munhall

discourages its use by men tired by a day's work. If classes and
reading rooms could be opened in the school buildings in more
accessible sections of the borough of Homestead, there would, I
think, be an increased attendance. The development of the
library clubs has been such as should serve to stimulate the school
department to a further use of its own plant, rather than to en-
courage the belief that the library meets all the cultural needs of
the community.

One exceptional opportunity for technical training, within
reach of Homestead, is offered by the courses at the Carnegie
Technical School in Pittsburgh. That this privilege is not un-
appreciated is shown by the fact that in 1907-8 six boys from
Homestead were taking the regular all-day course, and 17 boys
the evening courses. I knew of one boy of seventeen employed
in the mill who was attending the regular evening course, hoping
eventually to become an electrician. His work gave him some
leisure time in which he could study, and when he was on night turn
a friend managed to do the first hour's work for him so that he
could continue his course. As the Institute is at least half an
hour's ride from Homestead, it required some will power and
enthusiasm to take this trip after a ten or twelve hours' day in
the mill.*

* Arrangements are now made between the Carnegie Technical Schools and
the Carnegie Steel Company (and other employers), by which a young employe
who wants to attend the night courses is put on working shifts which will not break
into his classes.

124

Draughting Room

Carpenter Shop
Schwab Manual Training School

THE CHILDREN OF HOMESTEAD

The girls, too, can secure training in domestic science, mil-
linery, dressmaking, etc., in the girls' department of this school —
the Margaret Morison Carnegie School.

Among the English-speaking people the daughters rarely
go out to service, though many of their mothers have done so.
Nor are they inclined to work in the Homestead stores, where, I
was told, the Homestead girls receive a lower rate of wages than
do those from out-of-town — never above $5.00 a week. They
prefer the change and excitement of the Pittsburgh stores, where
they can get more pay, though hardly enough at first to counter-
balance carfare. A number were employed in the great Westing-
house Electric Works across the river; but the distance, the
conditions under which some of the work is done, the speeding
and low pay, and the doubtful reputation of some of the employes
among Homestead mothers made them consider this employment
undesirable. A few girls took commercial courses either in the
Homestead High School or in business colleges in Pittsburgh;
the extra expense of the latter was considered to be justified by
the fact that the colleges assured positions on graduation. As one
woman said of her young daughter, "We are poor, and we must
consider how she can get to work soonest." The morning train
carries a company of such office workers into the city.

But the proportion is small, and in contrast to the prevailing
custom of industrial communities, in New England, for instance,
the continuance of this reservoir of woman's labor, largely un-
tapped by commercial interests, is a matter of note. Undoubtedly
home instincts and standards would not keep all the girls from
work were a factory to be opened which would have use for them
even at low pay. That they have so far largely remained at home
has resulted in positive advantages. One may question whether
the family would not be better off to have the additional earnings.
But to the daughter who helps with the housekeeping, this house-
hold training is valuable. Its importance is shown by the
fact that the most capable housekeepers I came upon, with the
greatest capacity for making a small income go a long way, had
been girls who by working at home had learned methods of
economy.

The mill makes it possible for the sons to work and live in

125

homestead: the households of a mill town

Homestead and thus, before marriage, to develop the economic
unity of their father's family. It is significant that among the
budget families having a total income of $20 or over, 29 per cent
of the income of English-speaking Europeans, and 1 1 per cent
of that of native white families was contributed by the sons.
Some of these boys of nineteen or twenty earned as much as their
fathers. The period before they leave home is, therefore, the
high-water mark of financial prosperity for the family. During
this time a home can sometimes be bought. I visited one such
where the whole atmosphere was one of comfort. Though the
man himself earned very moderate wages, two sons had grown up
at home, and during the period when they added to the family
income the house and its furnishings (which included plush furni-
ture and a music box!) had been purchased. The boys are mar-
ried now, but their parents, in a way, are reaping the harvest of
those fruitful years.

The parents' ambitions for their sons are, as a rule, very
simple; usually to follow in their fathers' footsteps, getting from
the practical work in the mill a training for future success. There
is a fascination about the mill against which even unwilling mothers
find themselves helpless to contend. One woman, whose husband
had been a mill worker all his life and two of whose sons had
worked up to responsible positions, had had her fill of the ter-
ror of accidents which haunts many a Homestead woman. So
she wished her third boy to do something else, and secured a
place for him in a large department store. His wages seemed
small compared with those received by his brothers, there was little
prospect of promotion, and so he was soon hard at work in the
mill. The fact that the best paid men, such as rollers and heaters,
have worked up to these jobs through experience has increased
the natural tendency to put sons directly into the mill rather than
to give them a technical training. While occasionally a boy
wishes to go to college, the general attitude of the community is
one of scorn rather than of respect for academic education.
There is a general belief that the college trained man, with all
his theory, is less expert than the man who has learned the indus-
try through work with his hands. As few men with technical
training are at the start familiar with the processes of steel mak-

126

< 3

THE CHILDREN OF HOMESTEAD

ing, the value of their theoretical knowledge cannot overcome the
prejudice created among the men by their early blunders.

Whatever its disadvantages the mill usually gives a boy a
chance to earn a fair livelihood for a single man as a semi-skilled
workman. Some want what are known as pencil jobs, weighing and
marking steel, where the work is light and apparently considered
more gentlemanly, though the pay is lower and the chances of
mastering the business are less. The parents often accede to this
desire. Others begin at regular boy's work, as messengers
or door openers.* Promotion is rapid in the beginning, and
sometimes by the time a boy is eighteen he has already at-
tained his maximum wage. One woman who regretted that her
boy had not learned a trade, said that he was unwilling to go
through a long period of apprenticeship as a mechanic, when at
certain mill jobs he could earn good pay at once. Another woman
told me that her brother early acquired dissipated habits because
he earned man's wages while he still had a boy's lack of respon-
sibility and self-control.

The sons may work a little further up than their fathers;
a man told me with pride that his son, who was a foreman, had
secured for him a job in the mill, and a mother was eager to relate
how her boy had taught the new assistant superintendent the way
to do his work. Only rarely, however, do they secure an educa-
tion that fits them for an entirely different kind of labor.

The mothers, too, expect that their daughters will eventu-
ally marry mill workers. Yet they desire for their children
greater ease and culture than they themselves have enjoyed.
One woman told me very sweetly of her efforts to teach her
children better manners than she had ever learned. She bought
a book on etiquette and was assiduously trying to instruct them
in the little acts of courtesy which to many of us are a matter

* Mr. Norris, superintendent of the Homestead schools, spoke of the care
with which the mill superintendents refuse to employ any boy under fourteen, and
forbid boys under sixteen to work in dangerous places. Yet in 1906-7 "A boy
was killed in the Homestead Steel Works at 1.30 in the morning. He was a
'pull-up,' fifteen years old, who had worked eight hours out of a thirteen-hour
night turn. He had a few minutes to rest, and went back of the furnace to lie
down in a wheelbarrow. He fell asleep and was struck and killed by the extend-
ing arm of a ladle which the crane-man was bringing back to the pit." Eastman,
Work-Accidents and the Law, p. 88.

127

homestead: the households of a mill town

of course. She explained her own embarrassment in attempting
to set an example to the children, which she did with the self-
consciousness that comes to grownups. " If I do get up from the
table, I make myself say 'Excuse me,' but it is awful hard. I
never learned very much, but I do want my children to be differ-
ent,"— and the courtesy of the child who had opened the door for
me demonstrated her success.

In this home, as in many another, the plans of the parents
centered about the development of the children, rather than about
any change in their own economic status. We must remember
that in the steel industry fortunes have been piled up by indi-
vidual men who started in as water boys, and couple with it the
fact that in Homestead there is no longer any method by which
the men can collectively raise the general level of wages. It is
but natural then that a family's hopes should be bound up very
largely in its individual fortunes, and if these hopes are unful-
filled through the father, that they should be centered in the
sons. Yet in so far as my observations as to the future of the
children are not conclusive, they reflect the vagueness of outlook
of the people themselves.

For dynamic changes are affecting the town's growth, and
the lives of the people composing it. It would be difficult to
prophesy how far the children of the present steel workers will man
the mills of the next generation ; there is another stream of recruits
coming in which as time goes on may more and more dispute with
the native born and the sons of the old immigrant stock for
place in the ranks of the semi-skilled and skilled. We must recog-
nize the part the Slavs are to play. They today make up a full
half of the working force of the plant. They already affect every
phase of the town's life, as newcomers in the ranks of industry,
as aliens from East Europe, and (the great majority of them)
as day laborers at 16J cents an hour, whose earnings fall below
what we have seen to be a living wage for a family.

That the members of this economic group in Homestead are
largely of one race, and this a different one from the men in ranks
above them, gives a distinctive character to the situation, and war-
rants its treatment in a separate section. It is a situation common
to an important group of the major industries in America today.

128

by JoHfh Strlla

Slav : Cam.inh

PART III
THE SLAV AS A HOMESTEADER

CHAPTER IX
THE SLAVS

FROM the cinder path beside one of the railroads that crosses
the level part of Homestead, you enter an alley, bordered
on one side by stables and on the other by a row of shabby
two-story frame houses. The doors of the houses are closed,
but dishpans and old clothes decorating their exterior mark them
as inhabited. Turning from the alley through a narrow passage-
way you find yourself in a small court, on three sides of which
are smoke-grimed houses, and on the fourth, low stables. The
open space teems with life and movement. Children, dogs and
hens make it lively under foot; overhead long lines of flapping
clothes must be dodged. A group of women stand gossiping in
one corner, awaiting their turn at the pump, — which is one
of the two sources of water supply for the 20 families who
live here. Another woman dumps the contents of her washtubs
upon the paved ground, and the greasy, soapy water runs into
an open drain a few feet from the pump. In the center a circular
wooden building with ten compartments opening into one vault,
flushed only by this waste water, constitutes the toilet accommo-
dations for over one hundred people. Twenty-seven children find
in this crowded brick-paved space their only playground ; for the
63 rooms in the houses about the court shelter a group of 20
families, Polish, Slavic and Hungarian, Jewish and Negro. The
men are unskilled workers in the mills.

This court is one of many such in Homestead; one of
hundreds of similar courts in the mill towns of the Ohio valley.
The conditions produced by the incoming of these alien workers
form one of the unsolved problems of the steel district.

Two elements in the old country feed the population of these
crowded sections: the ambitious young men, with no ties, unless
to aged parents; and the men with wives, sometimes with children,
who come over here to make a better home for them. They are

13'

homestead: the households of a mill town

all stimulated by the successes of their friends, who perhaps have
returned with savings that seem fortunes. Often these people
mortgage their all for the passage money and if they fail here
no place is left to which they can go back. From quiet villages
they come to this smoky town; from labor in the open fields to
heavy work in the yards and thundering sheds of the mill.

As employment is steady and the workman's needs are sim-
ple, the wages seem large. The newcomer if a single man finds
groups of his fellow workers living in close quarters — three or four
in a room — who are enjoying life and saving money at the same
time. So he too begins to save, and presently, if he has a family
at home, sends for them to join him. If he is single, he sends for
his sweetheart or marries some girl of his race, whom he meets in
the mill-town courts of an evening or at church or at one of the
lodge dances. If she has been at service here, she too will likely
have a small account in the bank. Then, as the family grows and
expenses increase, they resort to the old expedient and begin
themselves to take boarders. Children come and grow up. The
man's wage does not increase; as he is a "Hunkie" the chances
are that he will remain a laborer. Most of these men come in-
tending some day to go back with a thousand dollars — men of
property. But even if they return once to the old country, they
often turn again to America; growing attached to the new world,
they become permanent residents.

An occasional family, when the man gets into tonnage work
or when the children reach earning age and add their wages to the
common fund, achieves a long desired happiness; they move to a
separate house in the suburbs, perhaps even to one of their own.
But to many the crowded court with its isolation from the rest of
the community continues to be America.

While there were no definite figures available as to the
number of these foreigners in Homestead in 1907-8, two Slavs inti-
mately acquainted with the foreign colony estimated that there
were between 6000 and 7000. When the mills were running full in
October, 1907, 3603 Slavic men were at work there, forming 53.2
per cent of the total number of employes.* As 1092 of these were
single men, the estimate as to the total Slavic population is prob-

• Table 3, p. 13.
132

PITTSBURGH 5URV

MAPS UNDER DIRECTION OF

SMBLBY M.MARKISON

I90S

LJ KAMI1BWLD1WQS IS-IMIU4S
■■ BRICK BVILDUHqS

|5^) OWRCHES BNCIRC

■■ MLOONS

Section ok Ward Two, Homestead, 1908
Showing location of 22 courts studied; number of children under 14 in each; loca-
tion of churches and saloons; absence of playgrounds

THE SLAVS

ably fairly accurate. The rapid increase in numbers is shown by
the fact that while there were no Slavic churches in the town in 1 896,
there are now Polish, Slovak, and Lithuanian Roman Catholic
churches, a Slovak Greek Catholic church, a Hungarian Reformed
church, and one or two Slavic Protestant missions. These churches
hold property the value of which is estimated at 1400,000.

Numerous national distinctions divide this body of immi-
grants as a whole, but of these the English-speaking community
is in large measure ignorant; to the rest of the town they are
all just "Hunkies." Of the Slavs employed in the mill in 1907,
5 1.7 per cent were Slovaks, 15 per cent Magyar, 10.2 per cent
Roumanian, 9.6 per cent Russian, 6 per cent Polish, 3.6 per cent
Lithuanian, 3.9 per cent miscellaneous.* Between some of these
groups, such as Slovaks and Hungarians, Poles and Russians,
feuds dating back many centuries still provoke quarrels in this
new-world town. The crowded courts bring them into close and
sometimes irritating contact, and as yet there have been few
amalgamating forces to counteract the old hatreds. Rather the
segmentation of churches and lodges, due to differences in lan-
guage, tend to keep alive these old antagonisms.

In spite, however, of these national conflicts the Slavs are
of similar temperament. Like the Irish who preceded them here,
they are in most instances in their own country the ruled rather
than the dominant race, and the majority come from agricul-
tural countries, where money is scarce, where living conditions
are of the poorest, where hard work in the open air has developed
rugged strength. With them they bring the standards of vil-
lage life, reflecting its crude sanitation (counterbalanced in the
old environment by the unlimited supply of fresh air), its bare
existence and its low levels of comfort.

The mode of living which we find among the Slavs is in a
measure due to a conflict between the nature of community life
and industry in America, and the customs and conditions that
prevail under a different civilization. In some measure, at least,
wages, housing conditions, opportunities for relaxation, conform

* For convenience in this book, as already noted, Magyars, Letts, etc., are
spoken of as Slavs. Though not of the blood, they come from the same general
district in mid-Europe and are part of the same wave of immigration.

133

homestead: the households of a mill town

to the "standards of living" of the influential group in a town,
— in Homestead, the standards of the native whites. The forces
of imitation and self-respect make it easier for a native to
achieve these standards, but the newcomers must live under con-
ditions which are not determined by their kind. Moreover, the
ambition of most in coming to this country is financial, or largely
so; and the determination to get ahead, even at risk of immediate
health and happiness, accentuates the problems which their pres-
ence creates. They come, then, with this background of meagre
surroundings, but with a vision of future riches. They come as
prospectors come, ready for any hardships that may help them
reach their goal, and with the passive endurance that has been
characteristic of their race. Those early dreams of money to be
picked up in the streets of the new world are bygones no doubt,
but these Slavic adventurers bring with them, nevertheless, the
expectation of returning some day men of wealth, — wealth made
up of savings from American pay.

Their labor is the heaviest and roughest in the mill, —
handling steel billets and bars, loading trains, working in cinder
pits; labor that demands mostly strength but demands that in
large measure. They work usually under the direction of an
English-speaking foreman whose orders they often fail to under-
stand. Accidents are frequent, promotions rare. In 202 fami-
lies in the courts studied, 88 per cent of the men belonged to the
unskilled group, a proportion roughly true for the mill as a whole.*
Only 2.2 per cent of the Slavs in the mill are skilled (Table 6, p.
40). Some of the men about the furnaces thus work up by slow
degrees to be skilled or at least semi-skilled, but in the main,
the Slavs have as yet small prospect of advancement. f Of the 21
budget families whose men were earning laborer's wages, five had
been here from five to nine years, two from ten to fourteen years,
and four had been here fifteen years or over. If the rank and file

♦The somewhat higher average of skill among the Slavic budget families
is due to the fact that representative units from each of the economic groups
were selected; also that the investigator belonged to one of the oldest Slavic
families and her acquaintance included many of the most prosperous.

f The sons occasionally enter occupations outside the steel mills which they
think more desirable. Two were reported to be drivers for livery stables and one a
roofer. But these young men did not earn much more than their fathers.

»34

THE SLAVS

are to satisfy their ambitions they must do it on less than $2.00 a
day, or leave Homestead.

Moreover, the Slavs find their work quickly affected by an in-
dustrial depression. During the winter of 1907 they were the first
to be laid off. Many returned to Austria-Hungary; many could
not go. In a group of 295 Bulgarians only 1 15 had work, while
among 212 Russians, 131 were unemployed. The stories of these
months of idleness and privation were pathetic. Remittances to
wives and old people in Europe dropped off, bank deposits les-
sened, and goods were purchased on credit till future wages were
heavily mortgaged. As Americans were sometimes given laboring
work formerly done by Slavs, the latter bore more than their
share of a burden that seriously affected the whole community.
The company's policy of caring for its skilled workmen by giving
them labor that would normally have been done by the unskilled,
was in certain ways estimable; but it made the winter a desperate
one for such of the unskilled foreigners as could not return to
their own country.

The steel industry, then, requires these strong men to do its
heaviest labor, pays them its lowest wage, with little prospect of
advancement and with the chance that they will be first to suffer
if work grows slack. What for its part does the town offer ? The
section where the Slavs live is in itself gloomy. The level ground
in the Second Ward cut off from the river by the mill and
from the country by the steep hill behind, forms a pocket where
the smoke settles heavily. There are oases in these wards, sec-
tions of street with yards and trees, but for the most part here
on the original site of the town, garden plots as well as alleys
have been utilized on which to build small frame houses till the
blocks are all but covered. While these houses are sometimes
built in haphazard fashion, they usually surround such a court
as that described at the outset of this chapter. For our cinder
path led us directly to the heart of the crowding and the sanitary
evils of the steel town.

To determine the extent of such congestion, with the help
of the Slavic member of my staff I made a study of 21 courts in the
Second Ward, shown on the plan opposite page 1 34, where yards,
toilets and water supply are used in common. In these courts

135

homestead: the households of a mill town

lived 239 families,* 102 of whom took lodgers. Fifty-one families,
including sometimes four or five people, lived in one-room tene-
ments. One-half the families used their kitchens as sleeping
rooms. Only three houses had running water inside, and in at
least three instances over 1 10 people were dependent on one yard
hydrant for water.

Each court is shut in between the houses facing the street
and a similar row facing the alley at the rear which cuts the block
in half. A narrow passage serves as an outlet. Some of the
houses are four or six-story buildings, but more than half in the
courts studied were but two stories high with four rooms each.f
This type usually shelters two families each; one family living in
the room opening upon the street and the upstairs room above it;
the other, in the two rooms looking into the court.

In summer, to give some through ventilation to the stifling
rooms, doors leading to the stairway between the front and rear
rooms are left open. As the families are often kin this oppor-
tunity for friendly intercourse is not unwelcome. Indeed, the
cheerful gossip about the hydrant that enlivens wash day, like
the card playing in the court on a summer evening, suggests the
neighborliness of village days. Nothing in the surroundings,
however, bears out the suggestion. Accumulations of rubbish
and broken brick pavements render the courts as a whole untidy
and unwholesome. Some of the houses have small porches that
might give a sense of homelikeness, but for the most part they are
bare and dingy. As the houses are built close to the street with
only this busy court behind, the tenant can scarcely have that bit
of garden so dear to the heart of former country dwellers. Only
here and there a little bed of lettuce with its note of delicate
green or the vivid red of a geranium blossom brightens the mo-
notony. Dreary as is the exterior, however, the evils to the
dwellers in the court lie deeper; in the inadequate water supply,
in meagre toilet facilities, and in overcrowding.

The deficiency in the water supply is serious. In the 2 1 courts,

* Of these, 168 were Slovaks, 22 Hungarians, 16 Russians, 10 Poles and 23
Slavs of other origins.

fOnly four had more than six rooms.

.36

THE SLAVS

only three families, as stated, had running water in their homes.
In no court were fewer than five families using one yard hydrant
or pump, while in exceptional instances it was the sole supply of
as many as twenty. As waste-water pipes were also lacking in
the houses, the heavy tubs of water had to be carried out as
well as in, and this in a smoky town where a double amount of
washing and cleaning is necessary. When the weather permitted,
the heavy washes were done in the yard. The pavement of a
populous court covered with tubs, wringers, clothes baskets, and
pools of soapy water, is a poor playground for children.

The toilet accommodations, while possibly more adequate
than the water supply, are a menace to health in consequence of
the lack of running water. There was not one indoor closet in
any of these courts. The streets of Homestead all have sewers,
and by a borough ordinance even the outside vaults must be con-
nected with them. These are, however, ordinarily flushed only
by the waste water which flows directly into them from the yards.
When conditions become unbearable, the tenants wash the vaults
out with a hose attached to the hydrant. As long as the closets
remain in the yards, it is difficult to introduce a system of flushing
because of the danger that the pipes will freeze in winter. The
vaults are usually in the center of the court only a few yards from
the kitchen doors, and create from the point of view either of
sanitation or decency, an intolerable condition. While occasionally
three or four families must use one compartment, usually only two
families do so. But even this means frequently that the closets
are not locked and that no one has a special sense of responsi-
bility for their condition; in consequence they are often filthy.

The Slavic courts of Homestead typify the conditions which
result when an industrial district is invaded by hundreds of
unskilled immigrant laborers, largely single men, largely country
people, who want a place to sleep for the least possible cash. Most
of the petty local landlords who provide these quarters care nothing
for the condition of their places and regard the wages of these
transients as fair spoils.

137

CHAPTER X
LIFE AT $1.65 A DAY

TO sum up the situation, then, we find a group of slow,
hard-working country people, ambitious to attain pros-
perity, coming in large numbers in response to the de-
mand of the mills for strong, unskilled labor. The mill offers
them its lowest wage; the community meets them with indif-
ference; the landlords exploit their helplessness. There is no
reason for surprise, then, that the inability of these people to
understand or cope with the adverse conditions which await
them results in much unwholesome living.

Let us turn from general facts and consider, in the first
place, how the economic problem of life can be worked out on
$ 1.65 a day.

With the single men the problem is of course a simple one.
Many care little how they live so long as they live cheaply. One
of the lodging houses which I visited during the depression con-
sisted of two rooms one above the other, each measuring perhaps 12
by 20 feet. In the kitchen was the wife of the boarding boss getting
dinner, — some sort of hot apple cake and a stew of the cheapest
cuts of meats. Along one side of the room was an oilcloth-covered
table with a plank bench on each side; above it a rack holding a
long row of handleless white cups and a shelf with tin knives and
forks. Near the up-to-date range, the only piece of real furniture
in the room, hung the "buckets" in which all mill men carry their
noon or midnight meals. A crowd of men were lounging cheer-
fully about, talking, smoking and enjoying life, making the most
of the leisure enforced by the shut-down in the mill. In the room
above, double iron bedsteads were set close together and on them
comfortables were neatly laid. In these two rooms, besides the
" boarding boss," a stalwart Bulgarian, his wife and two babies,
lived 20 men.

.38

LIFE AT $1.65 A DAY

The "boarding boss" runs the house and the men pay $3.00
a month for a place to sleep, for having their clothes washed and
their food cooked. In addition an account is kept of the food
purchased and the total is divided among the men on pay day.
The housewife also purchases and cooks any special food a man
orders; beef, pork, lamb, each with a tag of some sort labeling
the order, will all be fried together. A separate statement for
each boarder is kept of these expenses. Such an account for a
group of men in a small Slavic household may prove of interest.
The family (which consisted of a man, his wife, his brother,
three children aged eleven, eight, and one, and four boarders),
occupied a house of four rooms, one of them dark, for which they
paid a rent of $14. The man, though he had been in this country
about twenty-one years, still earned only $10.80 a week with which
to meet the needs of a growing family. One-half the cost of the food
was paid by the boarders including the brother, and amounted for
each man to about $1 .06 a week. The expenditures for the week for
the whole family of seven adults and three children were as follows:

Vegetables $ 1.06

Fruit 56

Milk, eggs, etc 1.98

Sugar 49

Sundries 76

Meat 5.78

Total

.f 10.63

The following table made up from the account book shows the
men's individual likings as expressed in the "extras" they ordered:

TABLE 30. — FOOD PURCHASED ON SPECIAL ORDER FOR BOARDERS
DURING MONTH ACCOUNT WAS KEPT

Article

Pambay

Baker

Droby

Pilicb

Timke

Beef .

1 .87

$1.20

I 48

Pork .

?37<

.92

I2.14

3.04

2.30

Veal .

.90

Eggs . .

.10

.05

Milk .

.21

.90

Cheese .

.10

• 19

.09

.05

Fruit .

••5

•25

••

Total . .

$3.96

1334

I3.04

?4-43

I2.88

139

homestead: the households of a mill town

The average expense for each man, including his share of
the general sum, together with the amount spent individually,
was about $8.02 a month. Adding I3.00 a month for room and
washing, the total expense to each was about $11 a month. In
prosperous times these men make regularly $9.90, which may be
increased when they work more than 10 hours a day, and on Sun-
day, to as high as $12 a week.* It is obvious, therefore, that if
the fixed expenditure of these single men is about $3.00 a week,
a large margin remains over and above clothes either for saving
or indulgence. They can thus send for wife and children, fulfill
their duties to aged parents, live high according to their lights, or
make provision for their own future.

While this program is an economical one, it by no means
furnishes to this group of homeless foreigners a normal life.
Though some expect to return and others to send for their families
when they have made their fortunes, all for the time being are in a
strange country with neither the pleasures nor the restraints of
home life. As in all barracks life, drunkenness and immorality
are common.

But while 50.5 per cent of the Slavs employed in the mill
are single, the remainder have families to support, usually on this
same wage. How does this other half live ? Let us take the
average expenditures of ten Slavic budget families (without
boarders) earning less than $12 a week, whose total average ex-
penditure was $10.03 a week, 13 cents above the usual day labor-
er's wage of $9.90. The figures are as follows:

Food $464 Tobacco . . .$ .07

Rent 1.62 Liquor 55

Fuel 27 Medicine

Clothing . . . 1 .57 Furniture

Other housekeeping ex- Insurance 77

penses 13 Other 41

We may consider the distribution of expenditure in this
group as fairly representative of the amount of money that the
majority of the Slavs can count upon unless they work overtime
or increase their income by taking lodgers. The $1.62 a week for
rent provides only a one or two-room tenement, two rooms in one

* While men engaged in the processes in steel mills work 12 hours, the nomi-
nal day of yard laborers is 10 hours.

140

LIFE AT $1.65 A DAY

of the undesirable houses costing $8.00 a month. This is plainly
too low a housing standard for any family. With an average
expenditure in this group of I4.64 a week, the cost of food for the
average family would equal 20 cents a day per grown man, two
cents a day less than Professor Underhill's estimate for essentials,
five cents a day less than the general run of Homestead house-
keepers got along on in hard times. As the Slavic accounts were
not kept in sufficient detail it is difficult to show the food value of
their provisions, but the statement of the average expenditure
of one family, including a man, his wife and three children, twelve,
three years, and nine months old, may give a suggestion as to the
kind of food purchased. This family was dependent on the
man's earnings of $9.90 a week.

TABLE 31. — FOOD EXPENDITURES OF A SLAVIC FAMILY FOR ONE

WEEK
Article Cost

Bread $ .75

Bakers' food 03

Meat 1.40

Flour 26

Potatoes 25

Other vegetables 09

Dried beans 06

Eggs 24

Milk 11

Butter 38

Cheese 05

Fresh fruit 13

Sugar 14

Tea 08

Coffee 76

Sundries 40

Total $5-19

Average a day 74

Average a day per grown man 23

While the sum expended was slightly more than 22 cents,
a rough calculation indicated that the nutritive value of the food
was a little below the requisite amount. In all probability these
Slavic women are not skilful buyers, — the accounts consist of a
rather monotonous alternation of "bread, meat — bread, meat"
that does not promise an inspiring diet. As many of the wives
are burdened by the extra work involved in taking lodgers, and

141

homestead: the households of a mill town

as the men do heavy work and are hearty eaters, they choose food
that is quick to prepare, and that satisfies appetite with the least
effort rather than at the lowest cost. This probably accounts for
the preference for meat in place of vegetables which would not
otherwise be expected in country-bred people.

The expenditure for clothing among the ten families con-
sidered was below what Mr. Chapin estimated was essential in
New York, though it formed a slightly larger percentage than in
American families in the same income group. No money was
expended for furniture; a fact borne out by the utter barrenness of
the two-room homes of many of the laborers. With the exception
of insurance, the value of which as we shall see is fully appre-
ciated, and the comparatively high expenditure for liquor, these
figures surely indicate that life measured in terms of possessions
is at a low ebb among these Slavic laborers. There was but $ .41
left for amusements, for church, for education. And what had
become of the margin which was to make possible the attainment
of that old-country ambition, a bit of property or a bank account ?
Some other means must be found to achieve these ends.

What that device is we saw in our study of the 21 Slavic
courts, when we found that 102 families out of 239 took lodgers.*
The income from this source is no mean item. Of the 102 families,
three-quarters received from lodgers a sum at least the equivalent
of the rent, while a fifth received twice the amount of the rent or
more. If we compare the income from lodgers with the man's
wages, we find that in over half it added 25 per cent or more to
the family's earnings. A glance at the sources of income of the
budget families suggests that among the Slavs themselves the

•The wavs by which families increase their income in order to get ahead
are indicated by these notes of the Slavic investigator in regard to families which
had bought homes.

"JohnC . Woman goes out cleaning and cooking. By doing

this she nas been able to add her earnings to her husband's so as to pay for
the property they now own."

"The mother took boarders till too old. Now the daughter does not
prove to be a good housekeeper" (perhaps because this was poor training
for the future).

"Mrs. Y. since her marriage has gone out to work by the day, and
then done washings in the evenings — she also has a boarder who pays $18
a month. But she no longer goes out to work since they have paid for
their home."

142

LIFE AT 1 1. 65 A DAY

wages of an unskilled laborer are considered insufficient to support
a family, even according to the standards of the Second Ward.*
Single men, then, who must find homes, and families with
small wages who want to save, together give rise to the lodging
and boarding system of the Slavic courts. The outcome is over-
crowding. Of the 102 families taking lodgers, 62 had four lodgers
or less; 33 from five to nine lodgers; seven from 10 to 15 lodgers.

TABLE 32. — TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINE SLAVIC FAMILIES
IN 21 COURTS. — BY NUMBER, NATIONALITY! AND NUMBER OF
LODGERS

Nationality of

Total
Families

Families

Having no

Lodgers

Families Having Lodgers

Lodgers

'-4

5-9

10-15

Total

Slovak

Pole .

Hungarian

Russian

Croatian

Lithuanian

Others.

168
10
22
16
6
4
'3

107

2
10

44
3

2
2
1

1 1
16
6

2
3

Total .

239

'37

102

Even among the families that did not take lodgers, half
averaged over two persons to the room. Of those who did take
lodgers, all but 15 suffered this same degree of overcrowding.
Forty-three lived three to the room, 31 four, seven five, and
six more than five to the room. It is in itself a proof of the
meagre standards of home life, that of the 102 families who took
lodgers, 71 lived in two-room tenements, where obviously there
were no superfluous rooms to be rented and where this economy

•Appendix I, Tables 2 and 3, p. 201

f As 70 per cent of the families living in these courts were Slovaks, with the
remainder scattered among many different Slavic races, it is perhaps fruitless to
attempt any conclusions as to racial distinctions in the matter of overcrowding.
But in the accompanying table it is to be noted that among the Russians not only
were there no families without lodgers, but that they had also the largest number
of families with over ten lodgers.

143

homestead: the households of a mill town

involved the overcrowding of space already inadequate. Of the
71 families in two-room tenements, 55 had three or more persons
to the room, 27 had four or more persons, and 8 had five or more.

TABLE 33. — NUMBER OF PERSONS PER ROOM IN THE 21 COURTS IN
FAMILIES WHICH TOOK LODGERS COMPARED WITH THE NUMBER
IN FAMILIES WHICH DID NOT TAKE LODGERS, JANUARY, I908

Families Having an Average per Room of

Total Families

1
Person

2
Persons

Persons

4
Persons

Persons

More
than 5

With lodgers, 102
Without lodgers, 137.

6
•9

9
49

■3

6
2

Totals .

This study was made in 1908 and the extent of overcrowd-
ing was far less than during the previous summer, since with
the business depression of 1908 hundreds of men, especially those
without families, had returned to the old country.

We have now fairly complete before us the picture of the
household establishment in which the family of the Slavic immi-
grant takes up life in Homestead. Wages at i6£ cents an hour
and the lodger as a means for supplementing them, are its chief
factors. Taking lodgers is not giving a home to a friend from the
old country nor letting an extra room; it is a deliberate business
venture on the part of a family to increase the inadequate income
from the man's earnings. This thrifty measure may seem to the
reader a wise means of solving the problem. It is only as he
comes to know the actual effects on home life that he realizes the
iniquity of a system which makes this necessary to attain the
altogether natural ambition to own a home or save a thousand
dollars, — or even for a husband to have his wife and children
about him.

We have yet to see what life at this level means as a basis for
rearing children, as affording human recreations, and as a foot-
hold for getting on in the world.

144

CHAPTER XI

FAMILY LIFE OF THE SLAVS

ONE morning I entered a two-room tenement. The
kitchen, perhaps 15 by 12 feet, was steaming with vapor
from a big washtub set on a chair in the middle of the
room. The mother was trying to wash and at the same time to
keep the older of her two babies from tumbling into the tub full of
scalding water that was standing on the floor. On one side of the
room was a huge puffy bed, with one feather tick to sleep on and
another for covering; near the window stood a sewing machine; in
the corner, an organ, — all these, besides the inevitable cook stove
upon which in the place of honor was simmering the evening's
soup. Upstairs in the second room were one boarder and the
man of the house asleep. Two more boarders were at work, but
at night would be home to sleep in the bed from which the others
would get up. Picture if you will what a week or a season
means to a mother in such a home, the overwork, the brief respite
from toil — to be increased afterward — when the babies come ?

Yet it is even more disastrous to the children both in health
and character. In the courts studied, out of 102 families who took
lodgers, 72 had children; of these, 25 families had two, 10 had three,
and seven had four. There were 1 38 youngsters in all. A com-
parison of births and deaths of children under two, shown in the
tables on the following page, shows that among the Slavs one
child under two years of age dies to every three children born ;
among the English-speaking Europeans, one dies to every seven
born; among the native whites and colored, one to every five.
In the crowded Second Ward, taking all races, one child under
two dies to every three born, — compared with one to every four
in the First Ward, one to every five in the Fifth, one to every
eight in the Third, and one to every seven in the Fourth.
10 i45

homestead: the households of a mill town

TABLE 34. — NUMBER OF BIRTHS IN EACH WARD IN HOMESTEAD
FOR I907. — BY RACIAL GROUP

Ward

Racial Group

Total

Slav

Eng. sp. Eur

Native White and Colored .

23
'7
39

338
4'
37

34
23

19
27

16
27
55

416
127
213

Total

416

1 12

756

TABLE 35. — NUMBER OF DEATHS OF CHILDREN UNDER TWO YEARS
OF AGE IN EACH WARD IN HOMESTEAD FOR I907. — BY RACIAL
GROUP

Ward

Racial Group

■

Total

Slav

Eng. sp. Eur

Native White and Colored .

"3
9
10

2
6

6
4
9

Total

«9

132

•9

191

TABLE 36. — RATIO OF BIRTHS IN EACH WARD IN HOMESTEAD IN
I907 TO DEATHS OF CHILDREN UNDER TWO IN THE SAME
WARD. — BY RACIAL GROUP

Ward

Racial Group

Total

Slav

Eng. sp. Eur

Native White and Colored

Proportions between total number
of births and deaths under two
in each ward ....

4.6
85
3-3

4-2

4.6
3-7

3-2

5-7

11.5

9-2

8.0

1.7

19.0
9-0

7-3

6.1
5-2

3'
7.0

5-3
4.0

146

FAMILY LIFE OF THE SLAVS

Against many of these deaths was the physician's entry
"malnutrition due to poor food and overcrowding"; that is, the
mother too poor, too busy, and too ignorant to prepare food prop-
erly, rooms over- tenanted, and courts too confined to give the
fresh air essential for the physical development of children. A
priest told me he believed that the taking of lodgers caused the
appalling death rate among the babies in his parish. Neither
preaching nor pointing out to women personally the folly of the
economy had sufficed to check the habit.

Not only is the mother too busy to give much time to her
babies, but she also suffers from overwork during pregnancy and
from lack of proper care afterward. Housework must be done,
boarders must be fed, and most women work until the day of
confinement. In accordance with their home customs, almost
all of them employ midwives and call a doctor only in an emer-
gency. I was told by a local physician that nearly half of the
births in Homestead, the large proportion of them among the
Slavic people, were attended by midwives. These women, who
charge $5.00 or $10, include in their services the care of both
woman and child for several days, and thus perform the services
of trained nurse as well as doctor. While of the 21 midwives
registered in Homestead, five or six have diplomas from schools
of midwifery abroad, most of them are ignorant and are careless
about cleanliness. In a paper before the Allegheny County Med-
ical Society, Dr. Purman, a local physician, reported numerous
instances where both mother and child had suffered serious injury
from the ignorance of these women.

The necessity for mothers to be up and at work within
three or four days adds to the harm. In at least 1 o of the 29 Slavic
families visited, special reference was made by the Slavic investi-
gator to the ill health of the mother due to overwork and to lack
of proper care during confinement. The strength to bear much
doubtless comes to these women from years of work in the fields,
but the change to the hot kitchens where their work is now
done undoubtedly entails a strain which not only injures them
but lessens the vitality of the children. This weakened con-
dition at birth combines with the inadequate food and insuffi-
cient air and the neglect which comes through over-burdening the
mother to produce the appalling infant death rate in these courts.

'47

homestead: the households of a mill town

Yet sometimes as you watch the stunted, sickly looking
children, you wonder if the real tragedy does not lie rather in the
miserable future in store for the babies who live, many of them
with undervitalized systems which may make them victims either
of disease or of the dissipation that often fastens upon weak wills
and weak bodies.

Keeping lodgers ruins the training as well as the health of
the children. The overworked mother has neither time nor pa-
tience for wise discipline. As the men who work on night turns
must sleep during the day, crying babies must not be allowed to
disturb this uneasy rest. All this adds to the mother's weary
irritation and makes it harder to maintain any sort of uniform
control. This failure of intelligent discipline was noticeable in
most of the families I visited, where cuffs and sharp words were the
usual form of correction. One of the Protestant missions which
tried through mothers' meetings to give the women some sugges-
tions as to child training, found them too busy to come. For-
tunately, however, the children who attend the public schools
receive some training. This the parents value. A teacher in
the Second Ward school said that while she had a great deal of
trouble in teaching the Slavic children obedience, she at least found
the parents willing to uphold her in whatever action she took.

Even more serious is the injury to the moral tone of the Slavic
community caused by the crowding together of single men and
families. In only four instances in the courts studied were lodgers
found in families where there were girls over fourteen, but even
younger children learn evil quickly from the free-spoken men.
With the husband at work on the night shift the situation is aggra-
vated, and reports are current of gross immorality on the part of
some women who keep lodgers; two or three actual instances
came to my knowledge from unquestioned sources. Since half
the families in the courts studied used the kitchen as a sleeping
room, there was close mingling of lodgers and family among them.
This becomes intolerable when families living in but two rooms
take lodgers. This was true, as we have seen, in 71 instances.
Even when extreme crowding does not exist, family and lodgers
often all sleep in the kitchen, the only warm room, in winter.

Certainly there is little to quicken mental and spiritual

148

Out of Work
Homestead Court, Spring of 1908

Phfttn hy TJine

FAMILY LIFE OF THE SLAVS

development in these crowded tenements where there is neither
privacy nor even that degree of silence necessary for reading.
We agree in the abstract that the individual needs room for
growth, yet complain of the stunted mental stature of these
people who have the meagre development of seedlings grown in a
mass.

Moreover, families who live in narrow quarters have no
room for festive gatherings. In the evening a group often gathers
around the stove gossiping of home days, playing cards, drinking,
and playing simple musical instruments. On the Saturday after
pay day the household usually clubs together to buy a case
of beer which it drinks at home. These ordinarily jovial gath-
erings are sometimes interrupted by fights and the police have
to be called in. One officer who had been on the force for nine
years said that these men were generally good-natured and easy-
going, and in all his experience he had never arrested a sober
"Hunkie"; it was when they were drunk that the trouble began.
The punishment usually inflicted for disorderly conduct in Home-
stead, a small fine, has little deterrent effect among the Slavs. It
is indeed currently said that some are proud of having a large fine
imposed, as they feel that it indicates increased importance.
Usually, however, they gather without disturbance simply to chat
and drink, to pass the hours after the day's work.

The women have few opportunities for relaxation. Some-
times they gossip around the pump or at the butcher's, but wash-
ing, ironing, cleaning, sewing and cooking for the boarders leave
little time for visiting. The young people perhaps suffer most
from the lack of home festivities. A two-room house has no place
for games or "parties," or even for courting; there is not even
space enough, to say nothing of privacy. So young folks are
driven to the streets for their gayety. Almost the only time when
the house is really the scene of festivity is when those primal
events, birth, and marriage, and death, bring together both the
old-time friends and the new neighbors.

On most of these occasions, whether weddings, christenings or
funerals, joy and grief and religious ceremony are alike forgotten
in a riotous good time. The weddings are the gayest affairs in
the life of the community. After the morning service at the

149

homestead: the households of a mill town

church, all return home if the house is big enough, and if not,
they go to a hall, and there the dancing begins. Each man
pays what he can, usually a dollar, for the privilege of dancing with
the bride, and the money — their form of a wedding present —
helps furnish the home for the young couple. At one wedding
during the winter $75 was thus received, but the girl by evening
felt that she had earned the money. In the afternoon the drinking
begins and by midnight the revel is at its height. The neighbor-
hood considers a family under obligation to provide these fes-
tivities. I was told of one pathetic instance where a woman, as
she was very ill, did not invite any one to her baby's christening.
Her offended neighbors refused to visit her, but when she died
they were ready enough to come to the funeral and share in the
drinking.

Some old-world customs, too, are maintained which seem
strangely at variance with new-world conditions. All summer
over the doors and windows are seen dried, smoke begrimed
branches from which the faded leaves hang disconsolately. These
decorations are part of a joyous religious festival in the spring time
similar to those that added merriment to the village life at home.
At Eastertide they keep up an old custom, said to date from
pagan days. On Monday the men go about with willow branches
and switch the women until they make them a present, while on
the following day the women retaliate by throwing water on the
men.

In other superficial habits of life they show themselves
eager to adopt American customs. This tendency is clearly —
sometimes humorously— exemplified in the quickness with which
they adopt our style of clothing. The men on Sunday can often
be differentiated from the American workmen only by the unmis-
takable Slavic type of face. Even in their own homes the women
quickly adopt the machine-made cotton wrapper and on Sunday
the streets blossom with cheap ready-made adornments. I was
fairly startled by one apparition in a gay pink hat, crude blue
skirt, and green silk waist that no grass in Homestead could hope
to vie with, all products of a department store, which evidently
gave the wearer a proud sense of being dressed like other Ameri-
cans. As I stood Easter Sunday watching the kneeling women,

150

FAMILY LIFE OF THE SLAVS

the mass of vivid colors showed how easily they copy the less de-
sirable habits of their native born sisters. If opportunity offered
they would doubtless be as ready to pick up our customs in other
more essential matters.

Lack of intercourse, however, hinders. The Slavs must
keep up their own festivities the more because they cannot join in
the amusements of the rest of the community. To the better class
of entertainments they are not welcomed, and to others the differ-
ence in speech is still a barrier. Obviously the theatre, and even
in a measure the nickelodeons; are uninteresting to those who can-
not understand the language. Thus cut off from what little normal
amusement Homestead offers, they cling to the few festivities their
limited opportunities make possible.

In summer there are of course more chances for recreation;
trolley rides and picnics in the park make a welcome variety from
the heat of the courts. The following statements, taken from the
notes of the Slavic woman who assisted in making the investiga-
tion, tell the story simply:

— They do not go to amusements of any kind on account
of being so poor and feel so badly after tney have finished
their day's work.

— Husband and wife go to the lodge dances, which they
enjoy very much. Wife goes to the five cent theatres, to the
parks in the summer and for trolley rides. Is fond of all
kinds of amusements and goes when they can afford it.

— The family have no amusements at all outside of their
own home, simply because they cannot afford it. They
would like to be able to go to some places of amusement, if
they could. Spend their Sundays at home in a pleasant way.
The mother and children go to church every Saturday eve-
ning" to say the rosary, which is one of their chief pleasures.

Starting in with such a household as that described at the
opening of this chapter, how far do any of these Slavic families
succeed in working out ideals they have set for themselves ?

If we turn from the crowded courts with their two-room
tenements to the homes of some who have attained their ambitions,
we find conditions that show an inherent capacity for advancement
in the race. As an illustration, note the change in type in two
houses, the homes of families from the same place in the old coun-

151

homestead: the households of a mill town

try, the one newcomers, the other among the "oldest inhabitants"
of the Slavic community. The first family live in a one-room
tenement, where even though the furniture includes only absolute
necessities, it is hard to keep all the crowded belongings in order.
On wash-day morning the disorder is increased. Nevertheless,
the home is kept as neat as the circumstances permit, and the
bright pictures on the wall are proof of a desire to make it attrac-
tive. As the man earns only $9.90 a week, they must keep their
rent low if bills are to be paid and anything laid by for the future.
In the other picture, the "front room" with its leather-covered
furniture is in a five-room house which the family owns. The
sacred pictures with their vivid coloring relieve the severity of
the room while they also reveal the religious note in Slavic life,
for if happiness is to stay with the family, the priest must come

TABLE 37.-

-AVERAGE WEEKLY EXPENDITURE OF 2Q

SLAVIC BUDGET

FAMILIES

Expenditure
Group

Average

Weekly

Expenditure

3 ">

S
<3

j
2

•5

Under $ 12.00

18.98

$1.53

$4.48

$.23

s 1 .24

$.01

$.13

$.60

$.05

$.42

1 .31

$12.00-$ 1 4.99

13.42

2.41

5-99
8-47

•70

1.67

.08

•34

.40

.05

.43 $.25

I.04

$15.00-1 19.99

•7-47

2.38

.56

1.80

.05

•39

■77

.05

1.26

.18

1.55

$20.00 and

over

21.55

2.62

7.12

.07

3.11

.56

3.22

.05

•37

.48

3-95

Average

$13.09

Sij.oo

?5-98

1.38

$1.64

$.03

$.27

$.84

$.05

$.62

$.I4

$1.11

yearly to " bless the home." This family after many years in
America has, by hard work and thrift, succeeded in obtaining a
real home.

Turning from this visible evidence of the way in which an
individual Slavic family has prospered, we find in the mill census
that the number of skilled, and therefore highly paid members of
the race, are few. Of the 3603 Slavs in the mill in 1907, 459 were
ranked as semi-skilled, 80 as skilled. The Slovaks from Austro-
Hungary are the most numerous of the race in Homestead, and

152

(lose Quarters. One Room and Three in the Family
A Contrast — I

Photo by /line

Pltoln bx I! in-

Parlor, Well-to-do Slavic Family 20 Years in America
A Contrast — II

FAMILY LIFE OF THE SLAVS

were the first of this stock to come here. Among them we find
proportionately a slightly larger number of semi-skilled workers.*
We have seen that of the budget Slavs still earning labor-
ers' wages, a third had been here over ten years; it is apparent,
however, that individuals are slowly making their way into skilled
work — a movement which, as the older English-speaking men
drop out, is probably bound to increase. In the 29 immigrant
families keeping budgets all of the men who earned $12 or more a
week had been here over five years. It is interesting to note that
some had come here when they were very young, eleven, fifteen,
sixteen, or seventeen years old; for example, a tonnage worker
had been here ten years; a man at one of the furnaces earning
$3.50 a day, seventeen years, and a machinist who earned about
the same amount, eighteen years. Even with the higher wages,
their families continue to make sacrifices to secure the desired
property more rapidly. A helper at one of the open-hearth fur-
naces, who had been here for seven years, was earning $2.50 to
$3.00 a day. The husband and wife still took in two boarders, so
that with their two children there were six people in a two-room
house, which was but scantily furnished. They had a bank ac-
count of at least $400. Another Slav, the head of a family of
three, had been here ten years and was working on tonnage, in
good times earning about $6.00 a day. They, too, lived in a
two-room house, but it was neat and from their standpoint proba-
bly seemed large enough as they had no lodger. They had pur-
chased the farm in the old country and besides had a $500 bank
account. Again, take a family of six. The father, still only
about thirty years old, had been here for over fifteen years. Out
of his wages — about $3.50 a day at fairly skilled work in the mill —
he was buying a small house with a garden. He was naturalized
and the family stood as a fair type of our new citizens. They took
no lodgers, but the limitations imposed by such thrift as they
practiced are illustrated by the notes on this household made by
my interpreter. Herself a Slav, their circumstances were a mat-
ter of no special interest, and she therefore wrote her notes with
no attempt to add "local color" such as a person of another race

♦They formed y.y per cent of all the Slavs in the mill in 1907, 60.1 per
cent of the semi-skilled Slavs, and 56.2 per cent of the skilled Slavs.

153

homestead: the households of a mill town

would have put into them. To her the statement was simply one
of facts:

Conditions of Work:

The man works on day and night shifts alternately.
Home:

They don't own their own home, on which there is a
mortgage. The man gives all his earnings to his wife and
when he needs any spending money, he asks for it.

Furniture:

They live in two rooms comfortably furnished, one a
living room and the other a bed room. They have a sewing
machine on which the mother does the sewing for her family.
Does her washing by hand.

Clothes:

They wear plain clothing. The woman does all her own
mending with care. The father buys ready-made clothing.
They have a change of clothing for Sundays, of a fairly good
quality.

Food:

They buy their food at grocery stores; don't get all at
one store. They live principally on vegetable diet, not using
much fruit. The man works hard and they are obliged to
have good substantial food. The family eat their evening
meal together.

Woman's Work:

The woman does her own work at home, but does not
earn anything outside, her time all being taken up with car-
ing for her family.

Lodges:

The man belongs to St. Stephen's Lodge, and his wife
belongs to St. Catherine's, both church lodges. They attend
one meeting every month unless something to prevent.
When not able to go, they send in their dues. The man gets
$ 5.00 a week sick benefits, also a death benefit of $1000 to his
family after his decease. His dues are $2.00 monthly and the
wife's dues are $1.00 a month. In case of death of the woman
the family gets $700. The wife's reasons for belonging to
above lodges is that their family may have benefits paid by
the lodges in case of a death, either father or mother.

Health:

This man is in good health. The woman is not in good
health, having gone to work too soon after her confinement;

•54

FAMILY LIFE OF THE SLAVS

was attended by a midwife. She did not have proper care
during her confinement. The children are sickly. One of
them had typhoid fever.

Education:

There are four children, the oldest seven years and now
attending public school. The only reading matter they have
is his Lodge paper, which he gets once a week.

Accidents:

The man had one accident, but no help from the Car-
negie fund.

Drink:

The man drinks at home and sometimes at saloons.
Pays for himself. He does not get intoxicated. The woman
drinks a little when she has it at home.

Amusements:

The man goes only when his lodge gives a dance, it
being expected of every member to buy tickets. Neither he
nor his wife ever attend theatres, on account of being kept
at home with their family. The woman cannot remember
having been to any of the parks or amusements of any kind.

It is by such thrift that some of the Slavs attain their ambi-
tion to own a home. An official in the foreign department of
one bank said he knew of 25 Slavs who had purchased homes in
1907. Sometimes these families continue to live in the Second
Ward. One family, for example, had bought an eight-room house
on one of these busy streets. The four rear rooms they rented, but
with evident regard for appearances lived themselves in the four
that faced the front. With the aid of the rent from the rear tene-
ment they had succeeded in freeing the house from the mortgage.
The families more often, however, move further from the mill.
One I knew bought a house on the hill with two porches and a
big yard where they kept chickens. While they had only suc-
ceeded in paying $500 on the $1700 the place cost, now that a
son was at work they hoped to be able to clear the debt. In the
meantime they truly rejoiced in being on the hill above the smoke
and away from the bustling courts.

The English-speaking families on such streets rarely extend
a cordial welcome. A woman who lives next door to a Slavic
family told me that some of the neighbors objected because they

155

homestead: the households of a mill town

were rather noisy and drank a good deal, though she herself found
them pleasant enough.

All the Slavs who prosper, however, do not try to buy prop-
erty here. Some prefer a bank account. It is authoritatively
stated that about 1600 Slavs have savings bank accounts in Home-
stead ranging from $100 to $1000, and even in a few instances to
$ 1 500. Occasionally this zeal for saving gets a setback. A few
years ago a Slav ran an "exchange bank" in Homestead and
when he had secured a goodly sum departed. One family was so
discouraged at losing the $400 it had on deposit with him, of hard
earned savings, that the woman ceased to take boarders and the
man to work hard.

TABLE 38. — AVERAGE EXPENDITURE OF 10 SLAVIC FAMILIES COM-
PARED WITH 42 OF ALL RACES, SPENDING MORE THAN $15 PER
WEEK

■S3

^.8

•S

Slav. . . .

$18.74

$8.0812.46

1.42

$2.20

1.04

1-44

fl.^I

$.06

f.QQ

1.27

$2.27

All . . . .

21. 19

8.14 3.18I .77 1 2.671 .561 .62

I.42

.06

•39

•53

2.85

TABLE 39. — AVERAGE EXPENDITURES OF TWO GROUPS OF 10 FAMI-
LIES EACH, THOSE SPENDING $15 OR MORE A WEEK AND
THOSE SPENDING LESS THAN $12, WITH THE RATIO OF INCREASE

•5

nor

ebold

enses

*
1

»'S7

$.07

3
1-55

Under $12

1 10.03

•&

I1.62

».'3

*77

f.41

Over $15

.8.74

2.46

.42

2.20
140

f.04

•44

1.51

.06

•99
180

$.27

2.27

Ratio

•89

'74

152

•55

••

.06

••

554

.56

lllil

L i ill

huh

^y "

iB- h r

FAMILY LIFE OF THE SLAVS

Yet not all the extra money goes into bank accounts and
houses. If we compare the budgets* of the 10 Slavic families
spending more than $15 a week with the average of the 42 budget
families (of all races) in the same expenditure groups, we shall
find that the former increase their expenditures along much the
same lines as do the other peoples, though it is to be noted here, as
in the general averages, that the Slav spends a slightly larger per
cent for food and a slightly smaller per cent for rent.

If, on the other hand, we compare the Slavic families spend-
ing over $15 with those spending less than $12 (Table 39), we
find that the expenditures which have increased less rapidly than
the income are the essentials, food, rent, fuel, and clothing; that
insurance increases a little more rapidly, but that the great part
of the increased pay goes for more distinctly cultural expenditures.

This comparison, though fragmentary, suggests that on the
whole these Slavs made a wise use of their increased earnings —
that there is an actual increase of expenditure for every item,
but that by far the largest gain is in that sphere which stands
for the less material side of life, church, education, recreation and
savings.

For most Slavic households, however, the increased income
which would make such increased expenditure possible must be
looked for not from the man's wages, but, at least in the first
years, from other sources. We have seen how the first recourse
of the young couple is to keep lodgers and the cost to health and
childhood that that involves. Time goes on, brings children,
and household expenses rise, and even with increased earnings,
tends to keep the couple at this double work.

* For average expenditure of all Slavic families by expenditure groups, see
Table 37, p. 152.

»57

CHAPTER XII
THE SLAV ORGANIZED

OTHER needs of the Slavs arising out of the industrial
situation and out of their isolation, they have attempted
to meet co-operatively by various forms of voluntary
organization.

The most powerful social institution influencing their lives
is the church. Some of the Slavs belong to the Greek Catholic,
some to the Roman Catholic communion, and both have an
intimate hold upon their adherents. Of their full part in the
spiritual life of the people a stranger who cannot even speak the
language is unable to judge fairly. When at the crowded church,
on Easter morning, I watched the men who could not find room
to enter, standing on the steps with bent heads and open prayer
books reverently following the service within, I had a vivid
sense of the power of the church over these stalwart, slow-moving
men. Another day I visited one of the boarding houses. Be-
neath pictures of Christ on the Cross and "The Last Supper," a
group about the table were engaged in a drunken quarrel. With
these two scenes in mind, — and scenes of similar character con-
stantly alternated in my experience in Homestead, — it was hard
to judge how strong the spiritual influence of the church was,
save to realize that it is an intimate part of everyday life.

Undoubtedly priests who are sufficiently intelligent to under-
stand the situation the Slav faces, can exercise a strong influence
for good. The one Homestead priest who spoke English fluently
was a man of this type, a man who seemed to comprehend the
problems of his people and to help in their solution. He not only
talked to the women personally but also preached from the pulpit
against the ruin of home life that results from taking lodgers;
he was organizing a club where the newcomers could meet Slavs

.58

THE SLAV ORGANIZED

who had been longer in this country and could catch from them
some American ideas. Priests of this type may be a strong
factor in the Americanization of the race. Unfortunately, as
many priests speak no English and are little more in touch
with American ideas than their people, the church life tends to
preserve rather than to remove national distinctions. For their
church is not merely a place for religious services; it is an insti-
tution with both social and educational functions.

I lived for two months near the Lithuanian church and
always enjoyed watching the group of men that gathered outside
the gate after service of a Sunday morning. Some came from
neighboring towns and looked forward to this weekly chance
for a friendly smoke and chat.

Through parochial schools, also, the church exerts a strong
influence. Here its activity seems less desirable since all the
Slavic parochial schools are distinctly below the standards of the
Homestead public schools both in construction and in teaching.*
There are far too many pupils in each room, not enough regular
school desks, and ventilation, lighting, toilets and water supply
are all insufficient. The lower classes are greatly overcrowded
and the teaching force is inadequate. One teacher said that they
were so busy that instead of giving careful instruction to children
ready for higher work they made them repeat the work of the
lower grades.

The parochial schools not only fail to provide adequate
instruction, but also hinder the work of amalgamation in
which public schools are so potent a factor. If the foreign chil-
dren played and studied with American children, barriers to mutual
understanding would be overcome. Moreover, they do not come
into contact with intelligent American women. Of the six
teachers in the Slavic Roman Catholic school, three spoke English
fluently, though not correctly, three spoke almost none. By
changing teachers, however, the principal claimed that, save for
instruction in religion and the hour a day devoted to the Slavic
language, all studies were taught in English. It was obvious,

* The St. Magdalene Parochial School, attached to the English-speaking
Roman Catholic Church, was held to compare favorably with the public schools in
equipment and instruction.

'59

homestead: the households of a mill town

however, that not only was the teaching of English inadequate,
but that those simple forms of history and literature which find
place in our grammar schools and which are doubly important
with foreign children, were missing.

This indifferent work is of course permitted in part by
failure of the parents to appreciate the importance of educa-
tion. Though I heard of one or two Slavic children in the higher
grades of the public school, I was told by the principal of the
Second Ward school that few went further than the fifth grade.
In 1907-8 one Slavic boy was in the eighth grade and the year
before there were two. These children are bright, but if they dis-
like school the parents do not insist upon their remaining, but put
them early to work.

In the 29 Slavic budget families were four children from
fourteen to sixteen. Two were in school; the other two, both
fourteen years old, were at work, one in a glass factory, the other
in a bowling alley where he worked from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. for
$4.50 per week. These were both sons of day laborers. My im-
pression was that the Slavs did not yet consider education a good
investment. Instead they were usually anxious to secure the
addition of the children's wages to an income that was truly
slender enough. They felt that what the children learned in
school had little relation to practical success in life, and lack of
intercourse with Americans made them slow to appreciate its
value.

The influence of the church in Slavic life is intensified by
its close connection with fraternal orders. The Slavs have
developed a system of benefit organizations which fill a large
rdle in the life of this isolated portion of the community. While
it was difficult to secure comprehensive data, I learned of at least
26 lodges in Homestead. Twenty-two of these had a total mem-
bership of 2108, 1765 of whom were men. The Slovaks, Croa-
tians, Poles, Hungarians, and Lithuanians have their independent
societies, and intermingling among these groups is rare. How
closely most of the organizations are connected with the church is
suggested by their names, such as St. Joseph's Croatian Society and
St. Mary Magdalena's First Ladies Slovak Catholic Union. That
this connection is not merely nominal is shown by the customary

160

THE SLAV ORGANIZED

requirement that members shall belong to the church, with
the frequent specification that they shall attend mass at least
on Easter Sunday. The symbol of the Greek Catholic Union is
an eagle bearing the United States flag in one talon and the cross
of the church in the other.

Table 40, on the next page, gives the membership, nation-
ality and benefits of these various organizations.

Finding themselves aliens in the community, their habits
and customs not understood by their neighbors, and their needs
to a large extent a matter of indifference, the Slavs have thus
bound themselves together for mutual helpfulness. While such
societies are found in most communities where there are a number
of people of this race, the tendency to develop them is intensified
in Homestead by the constant dangers of work in the mill. There
are many accidents among the Slavs. The hazards are accentu-
ated by their ignorance of these dangers and by their difficulty in
understanding the orders of English-speaking "bosses." Given
this constant peril of accident or death,* and a community
which takes little interest in the immigrant's welfare, the extent
to which the lodge has been developed is not surprising.

Without exception these lodges are "beneficial" in char-
acter; all give a death benefit, and many also a sick benefit. The
death benefits are usually larger than those given in the Ameri-
can lodges, amounting in at least one-third of these societies to
$1000. In three societies giving this benefit, the average assess-
ment for three months during the winter studied was $1.75. This
figure included regular lodge dues and in addition to the sum at
death provided a sick benefit of $5.00 a week for thirteen weeks,
and $2.50 a week for the succeeding thirteen weeks, thus compar-
ing favorably with the rates of other fraternal insurance orders.
The Polish society does not give a regular death benefit, but

* If they live abroad, the family of an alien killed at his work in Pennsyl-
vania is barred by state law from recovering damages even when the accident
may be due to the gross negligence of his employer. This pernicious law has
been properly disregarded by the Carnegie Relief Fund in awarding benefits. The
new relief plan of the United States Steel Corporation covers in its stated provisions
only "married men living with their families." Awards to the families of aliens
living abroad are thus left to the discretion of company managers — a sweeping ex-
ception in view of the great numbers of immigrants employed in the mines and
mills of the corporation. See Appendix XII, p. 249.

11 l6l

homestead: the households of a mill town

in
U

2
to

c-.

to
H

z
<

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a

Hungarian
Rejotmed
Federation

.2.2 £ * o -

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week s ;
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second
13 weeks

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weeks ;
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weeks ;
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second
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Greek

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second
13 weeks

National
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Greek
Catholic
Union

421

Russian
G.orR.C.

8§8Sn 8

•^ — rf\— un

Members; Men .
Nationality .
Church connection

Age of members .

Dues: Initiation.

Dues for 3 months
Benefits; death .

Death of wife or hus-
band

Total disability .

Loss of limb

Loss of eye .

Sick benefit amount
per_week .

2C "

'v>

vi •

it5

"o ">

162

THE SLAV ORGANIZED

assesses each member of the lodge $1.00 at the death of any
member. Large benefits are scarcely possible save when local
lodges are affiliated with national organizations ; as the death benefits
are then paid from the central treasury, the burden is shared by the
entire membership. The contrast between local and national or-
ganizations was shown in the mine disaster in 1908 at Monongah,
West Virginia. Here, though 27 members of one Slavic lodge
were killed, the national organization was able to meet the emer-
gency without serious difficulty. A Polish society, on the other
hand, which lost half its members and depended entirely on con-
tributions from the local lodge, could give only a small benefit.

Usually if the wife of a member dies, or if the man receives a
serious injury such as the loss of a limb or an eye, a portion of the
death benefit may be paid to the beneficiary. If totally disabled,
the member receives the entire amount of the death benefit and
then ceases to be a member of the organization. With wages
so low as to make it practically impossible for a man to save
enough to provide for catastrophes, these collective funds are often
all that stand between a family and destitution. To help families
in temporary difficulties, societies usually give a sick benefit of
$5.00 a week for varying periods of time. This practice is less
frequent in the women's societies because of the difficulty in
determining when a woman is entitled to a sick benefit. In these
homes where everything depends upon the mother, she can rarely
give up even when she is really ill. That all but two of the Slavic
families from whom budgets were secured, belonged to at least
one lodge and many to more than one, shows a genuine appreci-
ation of this form of insurance. The administration of the funds
of these organizations is thought to be safeguarded by bonds of
the officials, especially of the treasurer; and through initiation fees
and a special assessment, reserve funds are created to be used in
emergencies. Yet a common public prudence should demand
state inspection of the insurance operations of these orders.

These lodges also play an important part in social life. They
offer some amusement in a community where there is little else
available for the Slavs. The meetings themselves, while nominally
for business, afford a chance for coming together, while dances and
other festivities are held at intervals. Through them the stranger

163

homestead: the households of a mill town

comes quickly into touch with his own people. Especially is this
true of the men who move from one part of the country to another
in search of work. Traveling cards issued by the home lodge of
a society, and recognized by members of the local lodge in any
community, assure a man welcome and assistance wherever he goes.
This service, a strong feature with any fraternal order, is particu-
larly valuable to the Slav, with his ignorance of the ways of the
new country and even of its language. The fellow members of a
lodge become nurses who care for the sick or injured during nights
of suffering, and friends who give comfort in times of bereavement.

The Slavic lodges are usually limited to the members of one
nationality, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish, and in so far as they tend
to perpetuate racial and religious feuds, miss their opportunity to
amalgamate the immigrant colony. In this they differ from the
lodges of the English-speaking community; these usually include
representatives of all the English-speaking nationalities, and
thus create a common social intercourse. They stop short there,
however, and in turn fail to become the unifying force which
they might if they were to welcome foreigners to their mem-
bership. The Slavs, it is true, prefer to belong to a lodge in
which they can speak their own language; but this tendency to
form separate societies is intensified by the suspicions aroused by
the fact that they have been victims of a number of fraudulent
American organizations. The chief reason, however, is the dislike
on the part of the English-speaking people to include "Hunkies"
in any organization which would bring them into social and
personal contact. Even Slavs who have attained a good standing
financially have not been welcomed into the American societies.

Nor does the work of the mill, the one common element in
the life of the town, afford the relationships which might naturally
spring up. There are no labor unions in Homestead as there are in
the mines, to give a common interest to Pole, Slav and native born,
and pave the way for mutual understanding and citizenship.
The policy of the mill thus again becomes a factor in the life of
the town, this time to accentuate the failure of its residents to
bridge over lines of cleavage, and create a normal community life.

The separation between Slavs and English-speaking people
is evident not only in church and school and lodge but also in

164

Drawn by Joseph Stella

OLD Worlds in New

THE SLAV ORGANIZED

politics. Here again, even when Slavs are imbued with our
civic ideals, language stands as a barrier to mutual understanding.
Ignorant of our forms of political machinery, they can take a real
part in the town's political life only after a slow process of educa-
tion. Few of the Slavs are citizens. Only six per cent of those
employed in the mill in 1907 had taken out papers, whereas 63.6
per cent of the other Europeans were naturalized. Many Slavs,
of course, are ineligible because of their short residence and others
because of their inability to read and write English.

Those who become citizens find it difficult to comprehend
our complicated political system or to follow newspaper dis-
cussions of party platforms or of aspirants for local offices. As a
result, through the simple device of an organization manipulated
by the older residents, they fall into line and are instructed which
way to vote. Rumors of fraudulent registration and voting are
more or less current. Both the Slavic leaders and other local
politicians agree that a deal is usually made in Homestead and the
Slavic vote goes to the party which promises a place on the police
or some other minor office to a Slav. Direct bribery is apparently
rare.

That under it all the Slav has a genuine political idealism
is whimsically illustrated by quoting from a paper written by a Slav.
This idealism is not strange in a people whose political rights have
always been restricted whether in Austria, or Poland, or Russia,
and it seems deplorable that their genuine enthusiasm for democ-
racy should not be enabled to find early and fair expression:

The Slav race, and without exception all the Slav nation-
alities, are the most and sincere patriotic people of our great
Republic the United States, because they have found here
all that of which they have been robbed in their old coun-
tries. They have found in the United States personal and
common liberty, free and independent civilization, welfare
and all that which the aborigines of the English and other
races have there found themselves. Therefore the Slavic
races are the most zealous supporters of all the state and
social institutions. Because this way, the Slavs are interested
in the moral and material development and evolution of this
country; they are supporting every time that political party
which does seem to them the most honest, moral and virtuous

165

homestead: the households of a mill town

Barty. Because now the Republican party and the whole
'nited States under the most honest, circumspect, and glori-
ous leadership of our most beloved president Mr. Theodore
Roosevelt, are enjoying, just in the latest years, a degree of
evolution in every respect, naturally the Slav are mostly
Republicans and are following the steps which President
Roosevelt does designate. Very small amount of the Slav
is democratic. Socialistic are some, maybe 1000-2000, but
not a single Anarchist*

Some general observations may be ventured growing out of
my impressions of the isolated life of these Homestead immigrants.

It is clearly a vital need that the Slavs learn our language.
Sixty per cent of the Slavic workers in the mill in 1907 were re-
ported as illiterate. A night school carried on in 1906-7 in the
labor camp a few miles distant, at Aspinwall, under the auspices of
the Society for Italian Immigrants, demonstrated that the immi-
grant welcomes instruction in civics and English, and led to the
passage of a state law permitting the opening of such classes in the
public schools upon the petition of twenty residents. Up to 1908,
the schools in Homestead had done nothing in this direction. The
buildings were empty at night, and might easily have been utilized
for teaching English and a simple form of civics. During periods
of slack work, such as that of 1908, men would welcome such
classes as a diversion during the long hours of enforced idleness.

Two attempts to give instruction in English had been made
by other agencies than the schools. A Baptist missionary who
spoke most of the Slavic languages started a class and reported
that the men showed a marked eagerness to learn. The Carnegie
Library made the first considerable effort to reach them by opening
its clubs to the Slavs. Aside from a class in English, however, these
had not been adapted to non-English-speaking people. Even the
Slavic books, which the library bought for their benefit, were
seldom used. I found that a number of the influential Slavs in
Homestead did not know that these books were in the library,
indicating that this failure was due to a lack of successful adver-
tising. The fact that the building is on the hill away from their
homes, and has an imposing entrance which makes the laborer
hesitate to enter, and that there are forms that must be gone

•The complete paper will be found in Appendix XIV, p. 271.
(66

THE SLAV ORGANIZED

through before the books can be secured, also have doubtless
acted as deterrent influences. That a considerable proportion of
the members of the Library Club are immigrants, shows that these
obstacles have not stood in their way in the use of such practical
things as the baths. But if the library is really to reach the foreign
population culturally it must not wait for them to come to it; it
should go to them. A simple reading room opening into the courts
where the people live, where they could drop in after the day's
work, find newspapers and books in their own tongue, and where
the Americanized Slav could reach his newly arrived brethren,
would become an important center of influence.

In such a mill town, great distances do not exist to act as
barriers. But education and contact is needed to overcome the
deep-rooted prejudices of the resident race. If anything, they
are more ignorant of the inherent character of the Slav and
his culture, than he is of theirs. Mutual understanding would be
achieved the sooner were the American fraternal organizations
to adopt the policy of welcoming these aliens; or were the Catholic
church to exert a more definite influence to bring men of all races
together as well as to hold each race firmly intact, to interpret
America to them no less than to preserve the religious heritages
they bring from the churches of mid-Europe. In politics, social
bonds are less personal, and an aggressive, thoroughly democratic
civic movement in Homestead, no less than the ward politics of
the proverbial Pennsylvania type, might serve to bring men of all
races to touching elbows.

With this lack of intercourse it is now difficult if not im-
possible for the immigrant to come into a knowledge of our insti-
tutions, yet through local legislation certain American standards
could be made general. Laws and ordinances are in themselves
valuable media of social education. Through them we can make
our standards clear to the minds of the newcomers and impose the
minimum standards of a community upon all its dwellers. English-
speaking residents in Homestead live under fairer conditions than
the Slavs, partly because they demand room enough and healthful
surroundings. The Slav, coming from a crowded household on
a farm, may not understand why overcrowding and unflushed
vaults are intolerable in this closely built section where he now

167

homestead: the households of a mill town

lives. The importance of cleanliness and proper sanitary con-
veniences can be visibly demonstrated by means of well enforced
ordinances. Were the health officer to insist that the Slav take
fewer lodgers so that there might be air enough for all, and that
the landlord put decent plumbing and running water in the house,
the Slav would gradually conform to these new requirements.
Indeed, both the good and the bad may be new to him, and he
may regard the overcrowding as American.

In education, also, effective borough action might help to
raise standards. While Homestead has a compulsory school law,
it suffers in enforcement because there is a gap between the ad-
ministration of the public and parochial schools. As a result
some children are not in school at all and many are not regular
attendants. If the school law were strictly enforced, the Slav
would the sooner realize that in the American democracy educa-
tion is regarded as an absolute essential.

Differences in languages, in customs, in organizations, as we
have seen, have made a sharp demarcation between the two halves
of this still growing town. The lack of mutual understanding is
of course no more marked in Homestead than in many American
industrial or commercial centers. But while they are yet towns it
seems possible to work out some solution, before such round-about
methods as those of social settlements are necessary to bridge
the gulf. Through the existing factors of law, of the public schools,
of political parties, such contact might be brought about as would
hasten the slow process of amalgamation. As it is, the Slavs in
Homestead, in their neighborhoods, their schools, their churches,
their lodges, their political groups, are a people apart. In isolated
groups they are trying to solve the problem set by the economic
and social conditions which confront them in this town. Some
surer footing and readier fraternity is needed if the Slavic day
laborer is to be other than a menace to his own well-being and to
that of the community; if in the American sense, he and his family
are to "get on" in life.

In conclusion, we may well ask what awaits him if he does;
how is life bounded for the households in Homestead, whether of
the Slav or native born ?

168

PART IV
THE MILL AND THE HOUSEHOLD

CHAPTER XIII
THE MILL AND THE HOUSEHOLD

THROUGHOUT this study I have referred frequently to
the ways in which the one industry in the town through
wages, hours and conditions of work limits the fulfillment
of the family ideals. This is not because the industry sprang up
like a wicked ogre to carry on depredations among the towns-
people, but because the employment it offers is the economic
basis both of the household life and the town life; it makes both
possible; and the terms and conditions on which it offers this
employment must directly affect the everyday living of both.

It may be well, therefore, to sum up this discussion in a more
definite fashion; first, by defining the limitations due to hours
and conditions of work in the Homestead mills (interpreting
somewhat the attitude of the men toward this problem); and
second, by drawing from our budget study of what can be secured
for a given weekly expenditure, some more general conclusions
about wages. It is the workman himself who feels the first of
these limitations; through him the routine and hazards of the
day's work affect the family. The second acts more directly upon
the family; to the household no less than to the man, the mill
determines the livelihood; it is the housekeeper's purse strings
that are tugged with every wage cut and loosened with every
advance a man makes in the mill from the pay of common labor
to the higher tonnage rates.

The first of these reactions of the mill on the town is subtle
and hard to demonstrate. Yet no one who has lived in Home-
stead can fail to realize how definitely the conditions under which
they work influence the mental as well as the physical develop-
ment of the men.

In an earlier chapter I spoke of the twelve-hour day spent
in tumult and in heat, the heavy work, the periodic intensity of

171

homestead: the households of a mill town

labor at the rolls and the furnaces for the skilled steel workers.
The onlooker, fascinated by the picturesqueness of it all, sees
in the great dim sheds a wonderful revelation of the creative
powers of man. To the worker this fascination is gone; heat and
grime, noise and effort are his part in the play. The spectacular
features may serve only to heighten the over-strain which accom-
panies continuous processes whenever, as here, the full twenty-
four hours is split between two shifts. In the open-hearth de-
partment in Homestead in October, 1907, 15 17 men worked a
twelve-hour day, as against 93 who worked ten. In the Bessemer
department, there were nine men who worked an eight-hour day,
19 who worked eleven; the remaining 153 worked the full twelve.
In the rolling mills some common laborers were employed eleven
hours, but the men in the processes were dividing the twenty-four
hours of the day and night between two shifts. (The normal day
of the yard laborer was ten hours.) These long hours restrict
the development of the individual. They give the men in the
two shifts little time for outside interests. The week that a man
works on the night turn, from 5.30 p. m. to 7.30 a. m., he has
plainly small time to do anything but eat and get such sleep as
he can. The other week he has, of course, such leisure as falls to
any ten-hour worker. This alternation of shifts lets the men out
of consecutive night work, but it interferes with that regularity
of meals and of sleep which physicians tell us is essential to health.
When a man sleeps in the daytime alternate weeks, it means
continual change and adjustment. One week he has supper at
4.30 p. m., works all night, has breakfast at 8 a. m., and has a
more or less broken sleep during the day. The alternate week
he has supper at 6 p. m., breakfast at 6.30, and a good night's
sleep between. Sometimes when sons who are in the mill are on
the opposite shift from the father, the family cannot even meet
for meals. The irregularity in hours not only adds in the long
run to the fatigue of the work and breaks into the family life, but
also makes weekly engagements, such as lodge meetings, im-
possible, and prevents the men from taking much part in other
activities.

Some local ministers said they believed that this stiff rou-
tine tends to develop steadiness on the part of the mill workers;

172

X iZ bB

THE MILL AND THE HOUSEHOLD

one clergyman, for instance, told me that most of the hard drink-
ing he knew was among men who had irregular work either as
teamsters or in the building trades. Yet the existence of the
fifty or more saloons in Homestead indicates that drinking is a
prevalent form of excitement in the town. And exhaustion,
coupled with the thirst occasioned by the heat in the mills, is at
least partly responsible for the number of men who seek stimulus
from drink.

A further depressing result of the overwork in the mills is
the mental fatigue which accompanies it. The men are too tired
to take an active part in family life; they are usually ready after
smoking a pipe to go to bed. They have small interest in outside
matters and consequently make little effort to increase the
provision of amusements in the town, a condition from which
their wives and children suffer. Again, with the broken Sunday,
which is due either to work on that day or to work Saturday
night or Sunday night, it is easy to drift away from church,
and many ministers find it almost impossible to secure the atten-
dance of the men. One man who usually had to work at least
part time on Saturday night said to me that he was far too tired
to get up to go to church on Sunday morning. In the year of
our study one man in five worked on seven days in the seven in
the steel mills of Allegheny County.*

All this is bound up with perhaps the most serious outcome
of conditions in the mill, the tendency to develop in the men a
spirit of taking things as they come. As we noted in the chapter
dealing with the growth of Homestead, while the industry has
attained a marvelous degree of efficiency the town as a political
unit has failed. Men weary with long hours of work, men who
have been refused any share in determining the conditions under
which they work, are not prompted to seize opportunities for

* " It is my own deliberate judgment, after a period of almost thirty years'
continuous connection with the industry, the early part of which was passed in
manual labor in the mills, that the present conditions, which necessitate the em-
ployment of the same individual workman twelve hours a day for seven days a
week, are a reproach to our great industry and should not in this enlightened age
be longer tolerated." — From an address May 27, 191 o, by Wm. B. Dickson, First
Vice President of the United States Steel Corporation before the American Iron
and Steel Institute. As a young man, Mr. Dickson worked at the rolls in the
Homestead Mills.

173

homestead: the households of a mill town

improving the conditions under which they live. Their habitual
suppression industrially has meant a loss of initiative. Some-
how it is easier to pay a neighbor fifty cents a month for the
privilege of bringing drinking water three times a day from his
well, than to insist that the borough provide a wholesome supply.
There is, therefore, in the routine of life outside the mill,
little to stimulate these men to mental alertness, nor did my talks
with them give me the impression that their work within it
tended to supply this want. At different points in the process
are men upon whose experience and judgment rest heavy responsi-
bilities. But where individual skill was formerly a constant
element, little by little that skill, as well as much of the crudest
manual labor, is being transferred to the machines. As you watch
a crane pick up "buggies" of scrap iron, empty them into a
furnace, and then move on to repeat the operation, you feel that
the machine itself must be alive until you see the man who pulls
lever after lever with strong, steady hand. The demands upon
this man's faculties during working hours are not those which
had to be met by the old time craftsmen in metals. Improve-
ments in process are, some of them, the result of the men's prac-
tical suggestions, which are welcomed eagerly by the superinten-
dents, tested, and when practicable adopted. I was told that the
recompense in most instances is small — sometimes a gift of money.
Evidence, however, of quickness and ingenuity undoubtedly
increases the possibility of promotion. The exceptional man may
become an influential official, and the officials of the Steel Corpora-
tion state that there is as keen a demand for prize men as ever.
Not a few instances, such as Mr. Schwab's rapid rise, are well
known. But with 7000 men employed in this one mill, — with
half of the payroll made up of unskilled men, — with the tendency
at every point to reduce the number of skilled men, — with a
majority of the mills in all sections of the country of the same sort
practically under the one management, the prospect of rapid
advancement for the rank and file becomes more and more un-
certain. The sentiment frequently expressed among Homestead
people that promotion is due to a pull, may be only a feeling,
but it strengthens their belief that for this generation the future
will hold little more than the present. The younger men are

'74

THE MILL AND THE HOUSEHOLD

sometimes ambitious to study and work up, but the older ones
feel that there is nothing ahead for them.

On the other hand, the memory of the lost fight of 1892 is
still vivid, and the decisions of the corporate employer are not
accepted without mental protest.

Probably no outsider can ever know just what the men do
think about it all. Certain impressions, however, gathered in
talks with many of them may be worth stating, as showing the
lines along which Homestead men think. That the older men
lack confidence in trade unions is not strange. The strike de-
stroyed the enthusiasm that comes with success, and the hesita-
tion about attempting to reorganize has been intensified by the
growth of the Corporation and its policy of repressing any col-
lective action. Its industrial achievements and great strength
make it a foe not to be antagonized, and the men have realized
its power to the full. Those who were refused re-employment
because of their part in the strike, found, as I have said, that
they could get no work in any mill of the Carnegie Steel Company
and were in some instances unable to get it in any other steel
mill. Furthermore, common report has it that anyone who
proposes trade unionism in the mill is promptly discharged, and
experience has gone to prove this. One phrase current in the
town is: "If you want to talk in Homestead, you must talk to
yourself." "What is the use?" is apparently the men's feeling.
The people who determine their hours, their wages and the condi-
tions under which they work, are to them a small group of men in
New York, who know little and perhaps care less what the decision
of a 10 per cent cut in his rates means to a man who has been averag-
ing $3.00 a day; still less what it means to his wife and children.
While the majority of the workers understand only vaguely
the organization of a great industry, or the factors entering into
its policies, they feel that their conditions of life are determined
by forces too large for them to battle with.

That the men look on the Corporation as a hard taskmaster
was shown in many ways. Some even believed that the reason it
offered to sell stock to the employes was in order to find out how
much money they had saved, an opinion strengthened among
them by a cut in wages which followed soon after the men had

175

homestead: the households of a mill town

taken advantage of the first offer. Again, many of them expressed
the belief that my own investigation was being made by the
Corporation to find out whether wages would stand another
reduction. While these people were not among the more intelli-
gent of those I visited, they illustrate an undercurrent of con-
viction that the Corporation is concerned only with making money
and has no interest in the men.

Two states of mind result from this belief. Many simply
accept conditions as they are. As one woman said, " I tell my
husband that as long as he stays here he has no business to groan
at what the company does. If he doesn't like it, he'd better get
out." Others, especially men with families, whose own wages
may be fair and work steady, feel that it would be foolish to
attempt any movement which might result in loss of work in
Homestead. This may be common sense, but one regrets the
passive attitude which results from the lack of concerted action.

Not all the men, however, thus accept the situation.
When, as in 1908, the mills stand idle and the household in-
come ceases, while the Corporation deals out its quarterly divi-
dend, many are not sure that things are as they ought to be.
A man whose earnings for two months during the depression had
not paid his rent said, " I know the superintendent can't help it.
He has done the best he can and tried to see that all of us got a
little work. But I think that the men in the New York office are
to blame."* A consciousness of the complexity of the situation
made this man feel that the concerted action of trade unionism
would be helpless to affect the conditions of work. A small but
apparently growing group, recognizing that the industry is too
large for them to cope with, look toward socialism for a solution.
State interference seems to them the only means of changing the
situation. Those who think thus are not extremists; they are

* An incident occurred recently in which the editor of a local newspaper at-
tempted to shift responsibility as between Homestead and New York, and which
may or may not throw some light upon the prevalence of this attitude among the
people. In March, 1910, the executive officials of the United States Steel Corpora-
tion notified the constituent companies that the rule prohibiting unnecessary Sun-
day work, which had been a dead letter, must be observed thereafter. Pittsburgh
and Homestead newspapers gave local officials credit for this advanced step, ami
.1 I lomcstead paper declined; to publish the text of the orders which showed their
real origin.

176

Photo by Iline

Type of Steel Worker: Thirty-five Years from Germany

THE MILL AND THE HOUSEHOLD

workingmen who simply can see no other way out. These men
held few meetings and attempted no propagandist work; they
accepted the socialist program as an individual hope.

The attitude of discontent, however, is not universal. Some
who have done well in the mill are loyal to it, and are proud
of its reputation; others are won over by the plan by which the
Corporation sells stock to its employes. Those who hold shares
acknowledge that they have a different attitude toward the busi-
ness and more zeal for making it pay. One woman, however,
whose husband has a few shares, told me with some scorn of herself,
that they recognized that their attitude had changed. They
realized after all, she said, that the small dividend from the stock
did little to make up for the fact that her husband's wages had
been cut 20 per cent in the fifteen years of their married life.*
Whether or not this sense of rebellion is inevitable or justifiable, it
is bound up with complications due to the remoteness and the
size of the employing corporation and to the fact that there is no
appeal from its decisions.

In Superintendent A. R. Hunt, the local representative of
the Corporation in Homestead, the men have a real confi-
dence.! ^n his younger days he was one of their number and
his many personal kindnesses make them trust him. He is,
however, responsible to the Pittsburgh office for cheapening the
cost of production which is in turn responsible to headquarters
in New York for economies, output and profits. Moreover,
decisions on many vital points come from a distance, and since they
are for the whole industry seem hopelessly unrelated to the local

♦Among tonnage men changes in process, and improvements in machinery,
as well as increased speeding of the work, have notably increased output on many
lines, so that adjustments of rates have had to be made from time to time, to fit
the new conditions in the different departments. Sometimes these adjustments
have not meant a reduction of earnings, in other cases they have; a policy to reduce
the pay of the highest paid men has been consistently carried out. These changes
are distinct from horizontal decreases and increases in tonnage or day rates affect-
ing the whole force. In all cases, the men have no say as to the new rates. See
Fitch, John A.: The Steel Workers, a companion volume in the Pittsburgh Survey
series.

f Mr. Hunt, A. C. Dinkey, president of the Carnegie Steel Company, Charles
M. Schwab former president, Wm. E. Corey, president, and Wm. B. Dickson first
vice-president, of the United States Steel Corporation are all men who have worked
up from the ranks in the Homestead plant.
.2 ,?7

homestead: the households of a mill town

situation. I was told that when Mr. Schwab was made presi-
dent of the newly organized Steel Corporation, the men, with whom
he had been very popular, believed that with "Charlie" in New
York, their interests would be safeguarded; but when a new cut
in wages was made their hopes fell.

The workers not only have no representatives who can confer
with the local management on disputed points, but they have a
sense of being utterly outside the great moving center of the in-
dustry. The thing that is clear to them is that, for many, rates
have been cut and earnings lowered, while the men whose names are
linked with steel finance are making fortunes. Nor is this feeling
lessened by the part which these same men have actually played
in Homestead. Mr. Carnegie has given a library, Mr. Schwab a
manual training school, and Mr. Frick a charming little park
in the centre of the hill section. These generous gifts beautify
Homestead and provide something toward its recreation and
intellectual stimulus. Yet, though the people are very proud of
them, many a man said to me, "We'd rather they hadn't cut
our wages and'd let us spend the money for ourselves. What
use has a man who works twelve hours a day for a library,
anyway?" They appreciate what the library and manual train-
ing offer to them and their children, but they resent a philan-
thropy which provides opportunities for intellectual and social
advancement while it withholds conditions which make it possible
to take advantage of them.

Moreover, these men have given money rather than leader-
ship. There is a noticeable contrast between this and some mill
communities where the owners live in the town and take a genuine
interest in its development. Homestead has no leaders. When
in conversation I suggested that some changes in the sanitary
ordinances should be made, I was told that only a man of influ-
ence could accomplish it. But no one could suggest the man.

On the other hand, as was pointed out in Chapter II, a
heavy burden is imposed upon Homestead through the fact that
most of the mill property is set off in a separate borough. Mun-
hall, where most of the Carnegie Company's holdings are located,
is more attractive, has better water and sewerage, and has no over-
crowded section. It is the residence place of the mill officials

.78

Photo I v I line

Type of Steel Worker: Slav

THE MILL AND THE HOUSEHOLD

and has the income from the taxation of the mill property. The
borough may almost be said to be part of the plant. Here the
wealth and influence of the industry make themselves felt in those
external conditions which react on the whole life of the residents.

In Munhall the tax rate in 1907 was only 8^ mills, which
nevertheless brought $40,000 a year into the town's treasury
from the Carnegie Steel Company. In Homestead, across the
imaginary borough lines where the greater part of the workers
live, the mill owns little property subject to taxation; here the
tax rate was 1 5 mills and the company paid a tax of $7000 only.
Through these borough divisions the Corporation has thus been
largely relieved of contributing to the maintenance of the com-
munity which is necessary to its operation. That burden is
borne by the homes of the wage-earners gathered to do its work.

It is through the households themselves that the industrial
situation impresses itself indelibly upon the life of the people.
The environment of the home afforded by this checkerboard
town tilted on the slope back of the mill site, the smoke which
pours its depressing fumes to add their extra burden to the house-
wife's task, the constant interference with orderly routine due to
the irregular succession of long hours — these are outward and
visible signs of the subordination of household life to industrial
life. The mill affects the family even more intimately through
the wage scale to which the standards of home making, house-
keeping, and child rearing must conform. Here the impressions
gained by a season's residence in Homestead are supported by the
limited but definite facts as to expenditures afforded by the budget
study of ninety families. These were recapitulated in an earlier
chapter (page 102), and it is only necessary here to relate them to
the standards of the two main groups in the wage-earning popula-
tion which have been considered in this book. For whatever may
be the triumph or failure of the steel plant as a manufactory, it must
also be judged by the part it has borne in helping or hindering
this town, which has grown up on the farm land at the river bend,
in becoming a sound member of the American commonwealth.

By far the largest and most serious group to consider is
that of the unskilled workers — earning day laborers' wages.

179

homestead: the households of a mill town

With unrestricted immigration, and the development of half-auto-
matic processes, the trend as we have seen is toward an increase
of this unskilled labor both proportionately and in gross numbers.

The analysis of expenditures indicates that the man who earns
$9.90 a week, as do a majority of such laborers, and who has a
family of normal size to support, can provide for them only a two-
room tenement in a crowded court, with no sanitary conveniences;
a supply of food below the minimum sufficient for mere physical
well-being; insurance that makes provision which is utterly inade-
quate for the family left without a breadwinner; a meagre expendi-
ture for clothes and furniture, and an almost negligible margin for
recreation, education and savings. Many can, to be sure, add to
their earnings by working seven days a week instead of six; by
working twelve hours a day instead of ten; but after all, we are
talking of standards of life and labor for an American industry,
and common sense will scarcely sanction such a week of work.
Many, too, as we have seen, take in lodgers, but do it at the cost
of decency and health.

It may be claimed that the Slavs are single men and get
ahead quickly. But two-thirds of the immigrant Slavs in the
Homestead mills are married men. And the exceptional one who
gets ahead in the mill only serves to set off the fact that the main
body of the employes are unskilled workers and will continue
such so long as steel processes remain as they are.

Granted that to the majority of the Slavs, if ambitious, the
industry does not afford opportunities to prosper and to become
assimilated, still it may be argued that mill work, like gang labor
on railway construction, must be regarded as transitional, a
stage in the progress of the immigrant until he has learned our
language and ways. Nobody knows whether this is true in a
large way of the Slavs of the steel district. What we do know
is that however the individuals in their ranks change, the unskilled
laborers as an economic group persist. They have been a perma-
nent factor in the social life of Homestead. The community as a
whole must suffer if this persisting group lives amid an unwhole-
some environment and undergoes a deterioration in physical
efficiency. The wage which the mill pays, while it may bring a
little fortune to the single men who herd in a lodging house, offers

180

Photo b\ II 'hie

Type of Steel Worker: Pf.nnsyi.yanian

THE MILL AND THE HOUSEHOLD

to the men who bring their families and plan to become American
citizens terms which, coupled with their ignorance and ambitions,
tend to distort and depress in these formative years the things we
hold most precious in every home.

As I waited one day in one of the little railroad stations of
Homestead, a Slav came in and sat down beside a woman with
a two-year-old child. He made shy advances to the baby, coaxing
her in a voice of heart-breaking loneliness. She would not come
and finally her mother took her away. The Slav turned to the
rest of the company, and taking us all into his confidence said
very simply, "Me wife, me babe, Hungar." But were his family
in Homestead it would mean death for one baby in three; it
would mean hard work in a little, dirty, unsanitary house for the
mother; it would mean sickness and evil. With them in Hungary
it meant for him isolation and loneliness and the abnormal life
of the crowded lodging house.

The terms offered unskilled immigrant labor in the Home-
stead mills are not, it should be borne in mind, exceptional. The
rate paid day labor by the Carnegie Company in 1907 was higher
than that paid in some of the independent plants in Pittsburgh;
it was 10 per cent higher than the rate paid in 1901 ; yet it is fair
to compare it also with the rate paid unskilled labor in those
bituminous mines of western Pennsylvania where the men through
the unions have appreciably affected the course of wages and hours.
According to Professor Commons, common laborers in the mines
were paid $2.36 for an eight-hour day in 1907.* Their weekly
earnings exceeded those of a Slavic laborer in a steel mill by two
full days' pay a week. They somewhat exceeded the average
expenditure (| 13.32) of the $12 to $15 budget group among the
mill workers which, as we have seen, approximated the amount
it is possible for a six-day man to provide for his family on
$2.25 a day. In the expenditures of this second budget group of
mill workers, we found (Chap. VI) the food cost was about 25 cents

* As against $1.65 for a ten-hour day and $1.98 for a twelve-hour day in the
steel mills. See article by Professor John R. Commons, The Survey, March 6, 1909,
p. 1063. As already noted, the common labor rate in Homestead was raised May 1,
1910, to 17$ cents an hour, or $10.50 per week. This comparison with mine labor,
however, still stands.

l8l

homestead: the households of a mill town

a day a man — a small leeway for large families or indifferent
housekeeping; rent that would give three rooms, though not
with sanitary conveniences; clothing sufficient to meet Mr.
Chapin's minimum for essentials, and a remaining sum of $1.37
a week for recreation, education, church, savings, and sundries.
In other words, such a level, reached by one of the great industries
of the region, would seem to afford a foothold of physical sufficiency
upon which a newcomer can begin the American struggle without
great hazard to his family or to the community in which he casts
his fortunes.

As a permanent basis for American life, we must look to a
larger budget. We must take account of the fact that the steel
industry is on a different footing from the small, quickly develop-
ing plants in the early days. There is practically no chance
that the steel worker may himself become an employer, and only
a lesser chance that he may secure a highly paid administrative
position. More than that, while the day labor rate has been
raised, steel officials admit that there has been a continued policy
of reducing the earnings of the highest paid men, such as heaters
and rollers, some of whom in the years when output was in-
creasing by leaps and bounds made very large sums. It is,
therefore, only a livelihood after all to which the average man has
to look forward if he puts his working years into the steel industry.
The steady work offered by the Homestead mill makes it possible
for the English-speaking steel worker to develop a household
standard with some assurance of what is to be anticipated in the
months ahead. But accidental death, injury, sickness or a season
of slack work enter in to jeopardize this seeming security. A
livelihood cannot be said to be independent which does not provide
through insurance and savings for such emergencies; and it falls
short of competence if it fails to afford some current share of
pleasure as well as toil, of comfort of mind as well as food and
shelter. It is within the bounds of practical American idealism
to hold that such a livelihood should, within a reasonably short
period of years, be reached and maintained by an industrious man.

We found, so far as this group of 90 budget familes could
show us (and at the range of prices current in Homestead in

182

THE MILL AND THE HOUSEHOLD

1907) that only when earnings were more than f 15 a week ($2.50
per day) could we confidently look for any working margin above
those expenditures which should go for actual necessities. It
was only in the group earning more than I20 that we found assur-
ance that the average family had reached a point of surplus where,
without being unduly spendthrift of the future, they could live
well.

Detailed figures for October, 1907, for three representative
mills in a large steel plant in the district enable us to relate these
standards to the earnings of the men engaged directly in the opera-
tions of steel making.* Of the 513 men in these departments, 193,
or something over one-third, were paid the same hourly rate as
laborers in the yards. Of the 320 men earning more than day
laborers' pay, 76, or very nearly a fourth, were earning less than
the 12.50 per day without which we found that the average family
could not count on a practical margin above actual necessities.
About another fourth (82) were earning $20 ($3.33 a day) or
over, the positions ranging from that of a roll engineer, whose
pay averaged $3.37 per day for the month, to shearmen at I5.58,
general foremen at $6.05, heaters at $7.21, and rollers at $8.44.
The pay of these men, some of whom were in supervisory positions,
averaged that of the most fortunate group of budget families
studied.

Thus a full half of the men in these departments earning more
than common laborer's pay fell in our intermediate group, earn-
ing weekly from 1 1 5 to $20. They included, therefore, the largest
proportion of the English-speaking workers who, in these depart-
ments,! had reached positions of some skill. Here the question
whether normal life could be maintained depends, as we saw in
our budget studies, on many circumstances — on the size of the

♦Twenty-three-inch structural mill, 38-inch blooming mill, 128-inch plate
mill. See Appendix IV, p, 215.

f Earnings in the Bessemer department were not so good. Of the 1 54 men
above the day labor rank in October, 1907, only five per cent earned $20 or more,
and 50 per cent earned less than $15 per week. In the open-hearth department 262
out of 1610 earned $20 or above — practically the same percentage (10 per cent) as
in the three rolling mills cited. Detailed figures were not available as to the earn-
ings of the remainder of the open-hearth departments, but the average rate for the
twelve-hour men in the department (I2.76), coupled with the specified earnings of
the more important positions, seemed to indicate that the percentage of them earn-
ing over $1 5 was less than in the rolling mills.

183

homestead: the households of a mill town

family, on the temperance and steadiness of the man, on the skill
of the housewife, on freedom from sickness or misfortune. But
the margin is so narrow that the appearance of a disturbing
factor may seriously depress the family life. Those homely
marginal expenditures are at stake which may mean a front room
with money to heat and furnish it; washing and sewing machines,
and outside help to give the housewife some leisure; the doctor
instead of the midwife; the savings account and the insurance
policy so that sickness or death, if they come, will not turn sorrow
into importunate drudgery for the mother of little children.

Small families may not be unhappily situated in this inter-
mediate wage belt; and with lodgers, or with sons working, or with
the practice of an unusual gift of housekeeping, larger families
may have some comforts. The more closely, however, that we
scrutinize the amount available for marginal expenditures, the
clearer does it appear that the average family whose income falls
in good times or bad into this intermediate expenditure group,
must choose between meeting the family's needs for recreation
its need for providence and its need for that freedom in spending
for the home and its furnishings which help develop personal life.

The United States Steel Corporation operates in Homestead
one of the largest mills in the country, provided with wonder-
ful machines for producing steel; it has placed in charge a super-
intendent whose primary object is to produce steel perfectly and
cheaply; it offers work on certain terms as to wages and hours
which he who wills may accept. Its ignorant Slavic laborers, how-
ever, may be exploited by grasping landlords; the wives of many of
its workers may find life merely a round of wearisome tasks in the
attempt to make both ends meet; its men may be too worn by
the stress of the twelve-hour shifts to care for their own individ-
ual development or too shorn of self-dependence to exert them-
selves to maintain a borough government that shall give them
better living conditions. "Life, work and happiness, — these three
are bound together." The mill offers the one, subject to no effec-
tive demand by society nor commercial necessity that the work be
done under conditions which make the other two possible.

184

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I
METHODS OF BUDGET STUDY

FACTS as to wages and labor conditions in the steel district
were secured in companion investigations of the Pittsburgh
Survey. To get at their full meaning it was necessary to
relate them to the household life of the workers ; by learning what it
costs workingmen's families to live and what the general levels of the
wage scale mean to their wives and children. Such was the first
purpose of this inquiry. Since in Pittsburgh proper there were
complicating factors due to the size of the city and its various
commercial activities, it seemed simpler to undertake it in one
of the industrial suburbs. The inquiry naturally developed into
an analysis of mill town life from the household standpoint, an
intimate study of the everyday problems of the workingmen's
families. It was not, as early stated in the text, primarily statis-
tical. Yet to determine and illustrate the economic factors
entering into family life the budget method of securing data was
adopted, as employed in standard of living inquiries since Le Play's
first studies.

The investigation extended from October, 1907, to April,
1908. Reference has been made in Chapter III to obstacles which
the staff had to overcome in the field work and to the methods
adopted for getting into close touch with the homes studied.
Through various means friendly relations were established with
households of different types, the families were visited weekly and
the co-operation of the women was obtained in keeping accounts.
The data gathered were transferred to three cards showing: (a) the
general history and facts as to the family; (b) expenditures for food;
(c) other expenditures (see pages 188-191). In addition notes were
kept on any interesting points which cropped out in conversation
during the visits, and every opportunity was utilized to become

187

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189

NAME

Street

ARTICLE

Av. Price

Bread

Bakers Food

Beef

Pork

Ham,
S's<{e, Bacon

Other Meat

Fish

Flour

Cereals

D'd B'ns. etc.

Fresh Ve«

Winter "

Canned "

Potatoes

Milk

Butter

Cheese

Fresh Fruit

Jellies, etc.

Pickles, etc.

Su*ar

Tea

Coifec

CtCM

Urd

M*hI» iw*y

^urujrirt

ToUl

Card B: Food

KM)

NAME

Street

FUEL AND LIGHT

Coal

Wood

Gas

Oil

CLOTHING. Man

Woman

Boys

Girls

Materials for Clothing

Materials for Washing

Service

Furniture

Kitchen Utensils

Rent

Taxes, Fire Ins., Etc.

Insurance

Dues in Lodges

Dues in Unions

Education

Church

Gifts, Charity

Recreation

Spending Money

Tobacco

Liquor

Doctor and Medicine

Dentist

Money to Old Country

Sundries

Total

. Total Income

Card C: Other Expenditures
191

homestead: the households of a mill town

acquainted with the town officials, physicians, business men and
others who could correct personal impressions.

It was decided to adopt the account book rather than the
budget estimate method of securing data. To secure a budget
estimate, a standard of living investigator goes over with a house-
keeper her customary items of expenditure, and on the basis of
these statements, estimates the outlay for the year. The advant-
age of this method is that with the housekeeper's help an approx-
imate figure can be secured for disbursements, which are made
only at intervals and which vary with the seasons, for clothing,
fuel, house furnishings and other things. When the account
book method is used, the housekeeper keeps daily records of her
expenditures for the period studied. These are totalled and re-
duced to weekly averages. The advantage of this system is that
so far as the figures go, they are actual, and the element of esti-
mate is reduced to a minimum. All accounts included in the
budget analysis in this study covered a period of from four to
eight weeks; those which showed a five per cent discrepancy be-
tween income and expenditure were discarded. They thus reg-
ister accurately all outlays, such as food, rent, and insurance,
which are made frequently, but give only fragmentary indi-
cations of the cost of occasional purchases, such as furniture,
clothing, medicine, etc. We had neither the time nor the staff to
carry them over a period long enough to make these items sub-
stantially representative. Nor did we undertake to extend the
number of families studied to a total which would satisfy the re-
quirements of a purely statistical inquiry.

Bearing in mind these general limitations of our account
book data, and with a further word or two of explanation as to the
specific methods employed in gathering and applying them, the
reader will be able to form an independent judgment as to (i) how
far the group of families studied was representative of the wage-
earning population, and (2) to what extent their recorded expen-
ditures were typical.

As Homestead is a homogeneous town of wage-earners, our
first task, namely, that of securing families which in economic
status, racial make-up and intelligence would be fairly representa-
tive of the community, was considerably simplified. At the top

192

APPENDIX I

of the economic scale is no large high-income group to consider,
and at the bottom 60 per cent of the entire working force in the
mill are unskilled laborers, getting a common rate per hour.
Since, moreover, a majority of the town's people work for the one
employer, a recent census of the mill gave us remarkably complete
statistical information as to the skill and racial make-up of this
working population. This was supplemented by data as to wages
in the steel mills of the district secured in the course of a com-
panion investigation for the Pittsburgh Survey. Perhaps no other
inquiry of a similar nature has had such inclusive economic and
social facts as a local background. Moreover, as the women of
Homestead do not go out to labor and as (with the exception of the
hard times of 1907 and 1908) work in the mills has been steady, we
scarcely encountered two complicating factors which often disturb
such budget studies, namely, supplemental incomes and seasonal
non-employment. With the exception of the income from lodgers
in the low wage groups, the man's weekly earnings form the basis
of household life, and by what those earnings afford can the in-
dustrial life of the community be judged.

To indicate the gradations from the great underlying mass
of day labor to the comparatively small group of highly skilled
men, the following classification was adopted:

1. Those receiving less than $12 a week; that is, the un-
skilled common laborers at i6£ cents an hour, as exemplified in
the $1.65 per day for ten hours in the yards or $1.98 per day for
twelve hours in the operating departments.

2. Those receiving from $12 to $14.99 Per week.

3. Those receiving from $15 to $19.99 Per week.

These intermediate groups include, roughly, men paid $2.25
to $3.00 per day on time wages and the less skilled men who are
paid by the ton.

4. Those receiving $20 per week and over. The distinctly
skilled men, practically all tonnage workers, together with the
men above the lowest rounds on the clerical force.

In addition, a few families in each wage group whose bread-
winners were not employed in the mill were added to the number
studied in order to reflect more accurately the make-up of the
community.

13 193

homestead: the households of a mill town

It should be borne in mind that the facts presented in Chap-
ter III, Table 5, etc., as to the skill, nationalities, and range of
pay of the mill force refer to normal times. So also does Table 6,
in which the 90 budget families are classified by their regular
income. As tonnage earnings vary from week to week, these latter
averages are based on statements made by the families themselves
as to the men's usual pay and their income from other sources.
They are believed to be fairly accurate except possibly in the
case of three colored women who went out to work by the day
and apparently gave their maximum rather than their average
earnings. According to this table the 90 budget families when
classified by normal earnings were about equally divided among
the four groups representing the general wage levels in the mill.
While the "under $12" group of budget families was numerically
no larger than the other three, it of course represented over half
the working population. Among the budget families, as in the
mill, the Slavs predominated in this lowest group.

To represent, racially, the town's population, it was necessary
to include families from three groups: the native born, the old
time English-speaking immigrant of a generation ago, and the
newcomers of the past decade — the Slavs. A group of colored
people was included also, not because numerically important, but
for purposes of comparison. It will be noted that for each
racial group the percentage of unskilled workers among the budget
families is decidedly smaller than in the mill census.* The generali-
zations with respect to each nationality, therefore, were drawn from
families above the average in skill and wages, so that the picture
is less dark if anything than the reality. In such a study as the
present one, in which the conclusions have been critical of the
returns paid to labor, this was a bias on the safe side.

A third requisite was to secure families which in intelligence
were representative of the community studied. Here we met a
difficulty common to all standard of living inquiries; that as
the more intelligent women who can keep accounts or make ac-
curate estimates are usually the more skilful housekeepers, their
figures are not thoroughly representative. To overcome this, we
kept accounts for families who could not do it for themselves,

Table I, page 200; also Appendix III.
194

APPENDIX I

visiting them daily or every other day for that purpose. Among
these were some where the women could neither read nor write.
As already noted, the Slavic families included some newly arrived
immigrants and were visited by a woman speaking their languages.

On these points then, of economic status, racial make-up,
and intelligence, a comparison of the 90 budget families with the
census of the mill force shows that, taken as a whole, there were
among the former proportionately fewer earning low wages, fewer
Slavs and fewer unskilled. We did not attempt, however, to
present in the 90 families a miniature of the town's population.
Our endeavor was to make sure that the number studied included
small sample groups, each of which would represent an impor-
tant element in that population. In this we were reasonably
successful.

The numbers in the different groups were not sufficiently
large to make satisfactory cross classifications including size of
family as well as race and economic status. For this reason, the
conclusions, with few exceptions, have been drawn from the
primary classifications. The occurrence of the hard times, to be
discussed later, dislodged a number of budget families from
their normal economic groups; but the shifting was not so great
as altogether to negative the care taken to see that initially
they were representative of the different elements in the social
make-up. The tables at the close of this appendix and in Ap-
pendix II give further indications as to size, occupation, etc., of
the families studied.

Turning to our second query — how far the actual expendi-
tures of the families studied were in themselves representative —
we must consider several difficulties that were encountered in the
course of the work. These, together with the methods employed
in overcoming them so far as practicable, should be made clear.
The various items of the budget, — rent, food, occasional expendi-
tures,— may be taken up in order.

Under the first heading, that of rent, it is to be noted that
13 of the 90 families whose expenditures were analyzed owned
their homes free of mortgage — a proportion which fairly repre-
sented the possibilities in this direction which the town's life

195

homestead: the households of a mill town

holds but a number too small to warrant special averages. This
complication is inevitable in any study of mill-town expenditures,
though usually absent in tenement studies in a city. While
such families do not pay rent they have to reckon on the cost
of taxes and repairs. No attempt has been made to estimate
just what these amounts would be annually for the families
studied. The impression gained was that as a whole such families
spent for these items less than the equivalent of rent and therefore
had more margin for other items than would house-renting fam-
ilies in the same expenditure groups.

To overcome this element of variation the principal tables in
the chapter on rent were based on the actual rentals of the house-
renting families; and in the chapter on food the test of sufficiency
(22 cents per man per day) arrived at by Professor Underhill was
accepted as a minimum. Therefore, for these two most important
items, we were able to secure units unaffected by this element of
house ownership, to use in the final recapitulations as to what a
family could get for a given weekly expenditure. With respect
to the balance available for the remaining items in the budgets,
the effect of the inclusion of the 13 house-owners in our general
schedules is not altogether clear. Yet a comparison of the average
expenditures of the 90 budget families as a whole (Table 9,
page 45), with 77 house renters, classified separately (Table 10),
seems to show that their inclusion did not materially alter this
remainder. This is illustrated by the following figures for the
families spending less than $15 per week for all needs:

Rent

Food

Total for rent and food

All families (48)

House renters (43). .

. ,$2.01
. . . 2.25

14-73
445

$6.74
670

It was only among those who spent $15 per week or over
that the averages for all families (as against the house renters sepa-
rately) showed an increased outlay for such items as church, educa-
tion and recreation. The differences even here were very slight.

With respect to the next major item in the budget, food
we did not attempt to include in the inquiry any dietetic research
as to the food values of provisions used by the families. Such
elementary calculations as to food values as could be made from

196

APPENDIX I

the accounts, indicated that it was reasonable to apply the per
diem standard determined by Professor Underhill in his New
York estimates the same year, which were based on a careful
weighing and chemical analysis of materials and waste. The
point is more fully explained in the text, page 70.

With the exception of insurance, no satisfactory data were
obtained from the account books as to occasional expenditures,
as furniture, clothing, expenses of sickness, etc. Such items are
at best an unsatisfactory basis of computation unless accounts are
kept for the full year. Rather than attempt estimates on the
basis of such data as was secured, we made use of conclusions
reached in Professor Chapin's exhaustive analysis of the budget
estimates of 500 New York families in 1907.

The whole range of expenditures of many families was affected
by the industrial depression of 1 907 and 1 908. As stated in the text,
within six weeks after the budget work was started the trouble
began and, by the middle of December, the mills were running
only about half time, a situation which lasted during the remainder
of the investigation. To make up for reduced incomes, rents
were allowed to run in arrears, stores gave credit freely to their
old customers and money was drawn from the bank. The budget
Slavs, for instance, averaged I3.28 per week for credit, one-quarter
of their total expenditure of 1 13.07.

As the depression was regarded as temporary, families did
not reduce purchases during this period of waiting as much as
would have been anticipated. The items probably farthest from
normal were those for clothing and furniture, since these expendi-
tures could easily be postponed. Nevertheless, as few families
were receiving full wages, the household accounts fell below what
was customary. The elements of uncertainty were sufficient to
render out of the question any close statistical deductions as to
actual expenditures in prosperous times by families classified by
their normal wage groups; as to what proportion of their normal
incomes these families would spend for the different budget items;
or as to the uses of any surplus which the more prosperous families
might be accustomed to. Much larger groups of families, studied for
longer and more representative periods, would have been essential.

197

homestead: the households of a mill town

It looked for a while as if the accounts being kept by
our housewives must lose their value also for the simpler compara-
tive uses we had planned to put them to. As time went on this
did not prove to be the case. We were seeking light on what ele-
mentary household standards are possible on an income, say, of
$ 12 a week in Homestead. If the period covered by the investi-
gation had been a normal one, we could have put opposite each
other a family's average earnings and what the money went for as
shown by its account book, computed averages, and drawn simple
and direct deductions as to the relation between wages and costs
of living for each group. Instead, in analyzing the data from the
account books, we divided the families, not according to normal
wages, but according to the amounts they actually spent per
week during the period studied, including what was purchased
on credit from landlord, grocer and butcher, and what was
drawn from the bank. Rents and the prices of food stuffs
did not change appreciably during this period. With these
constant, $12 per week would in general buy the same, whether
the payments were met out of the lowered earnings of a family
during a period of slack times, or out of the total wages of a low-
paid man when the mills were running full. For instance, take
the household of a semi-skilled man receiving say $2.50 a day, but
working only part time and averaging $11.50 instead of $15 per
week for the period studied. If this family lived on his $1 1.50 and
paid their bills, the family was entered in the "under $12" per
week expenditure group. If they drew money from the bank or
secured credit at the store for $2.00 besides, they were entered in
the "$12 to $14.99" c'ass-

So far as total weekly expenditures go, it is to be noted that
only in the "under $12" and "over $20" groups would the result-
ing averages probably be appreciably affected by hard times. The
latter group is outside the debatable ground: the average expendi-
ture by the former was, it turned out, not far from the customary
wages of common labor, with which it was compared. The dis-
cussion hinged on the important intermediate groups. The per-
sonnel of such an intermediate group, of course, changes, but as
a statistical category it remains constant. Half-time employment
would throw certain families into the "$12 to $14.99" group from

.98

APPENDIX I

above, and others would drop out below; but the average total
expenditure would remain fairly stable.

An element of discrepancy, however, enters into the dis-
cussion of items making up this average total. For instance, in
the case of the $15 man cited above his fixed expenditures, such as
rent, would go on. They would probably be higher than those of a
man with an income ordinarily under $12, and the balance free for
other expenditures would be less. As affecting this discrepancy,
it should be pointed out that these semi-skilled householders often
brought a higher grade of managing ability to the purchase and
handling of food and other household necessities than would
ordinarily be true of the average laborer's family, and also that
they would buy, in such a period of depression, only the essentials.
With prices normal, the food or other necessities purchased under
such circumstances for a dollar were probably as much as could
ever be bought in Homestead for such a sum.

Thus by classifying the actual household expenditures into
groups corresponding to the range of wages paid in the mills, light
was thrown on what an average family at each wage level might
reasonably secure from its weekly earnings in ordinary times.
The 90 budgets, therefore, afforded a body of specific indications
correcting and strengthening the general impressions received, as
to how far earnings current in Homestead would go (a) for an un-
skilled immigrant who seeks a foothold in this country through a
job as common laborer, or (b) for the American who looks to his
work as a permanent basis for livelihood.

The following tables relating to the budget study supplement
those given in the text.

199

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200

APPENDIX I

TABLE 2. — AVERAGE NORMAL WEEKLY INCOME AND INCOME FROM
SPECIFIED SOURCES, OF 90 BUDGET FAMILIES. — BY RACIAL
GROUP

Racial Group

Number

of
family

Average

weekly

income

Income from

Man

Sons

Wife

Lodgers

Bank

Slav . . . .
Eng. Sp. Eur. .
Nat. White
Col

29
'3
25
23

1 1 3.88
20.53
22.93
17.92

1 12.08
16.41

18.95
13.27

? -l2

3.85

2.20
1.30

I -34

.24
2.15

$ -94

•27

•34

1.20

f 1.20*

* This family had recently sold a store and were regularly drawing money
from bank.

TABLE 3. — 90 BUDGET FAMILIES. — BY NUMBER OF FAMILIES HAVING
INCOME FROM GIVEN SOURCES IN NORMAL TIMES AND BY
RACIAL GROUP

Racial Group

Number

of
Families

Families with Income from

Man only

Woman

Sons

Lodgers

Slav . . . .
Eng. Sp. Eur.
Nat. White .
Colored.

29
'3
25
23

'4
9
16

2
6

9
1

Total .

TABLE 4. — AVERAGE SIZE OF FAMILIES, AND OF FAMILIES INCLUD-
ING LODGERS. — BY EXPENDITURE AND NATIONALITY GROUPS

Under $12

$I2.00 TO

$14-99

$15.00 TO
$19.99

$20 AND

Over

Total

Nationality.

Not

Including

Lodgers

.5 >-

►55 *>

Number

in
Families

**>

•~-2?

Number

in
Families

Number

in
Families

•0

Number

in
Families

«£

Slav . . .
Eng. Sp. Eur. .
Nat. White .
Colored .

37
7.0
4.0
2-5

3-9
7.0
4.0
3.2

4.2

7-3
7.0

7-2

73
7.0

4-7

44
5.0

4-4
4.0

7'
5.0

45
4.0

4-7

4.8
4.0

4-7
7-7
5-2
4.0

4.6
3-4

11
4.8
3.8

Total average

3-7

3-9

5-2

6.3

4-4

5-3

5-2

5-4

4-4

0.5

201

homestead: the households of a mill town

table 5. — 90 budget families. number of persons per room.
— by racial group

Total Families

Families Having

Racial Group

One Person
per Room

Two Persons
per Room

Three or More

Persons per

Room

Slav. . . .
Nat. White
Eng. Sp. Eur. .
Colored

29
25
'3
23

6
20

7
17

«4

2
0

Total.

5°

TABLE 6. — NUMBER OF HOUSE-OWNING AND HOUSE-RENTING
FAMILIES HAVING WATER IN HOUSE, AND NUMBER HAVING TWO
OR MORE PERSONS PER ROOM. — BY EXPENDITURE GROUP

Expenditure

Total Number
of Families

Number of Families Having

Group

Water in House

Two or More Persons per Room

Under $12.00 .
f12.00-l14.99 .
J15.00-f19.99 .
$20.00 and over

16
23
19

16
10
9

Total .

TABLE 7. — 90 BUDGET FAMILIES OCCUPYING TENEMENTS OF SPECI-
FIED NUMBER OF ROOMS. — BY RACIAL GROUP

Total
Fam-
ilies

One
Room

Two
Rooms

Three
Rooms

Four
Rooms

Five
Rooms

Six
Rooms

Racial Group

Number

of
Families

Number

of
Families

Number

of
Families

Number

of
Families

Number
Families

Number

of
Families

Slav.

Bag, Sp. Eur. .
Nat. White. .
Colored. .

29
'3
25
23

'5
6

5
3

4
5

3
10

202

APPENDIX I

TABLE 8. — 90 BUDGET FAMILIES OCCUPYING SPECIFIED NUMBER OF
ROOMS. — BY EXPENDITURE GROUP

Expenditure Group

Total
Fam-
ilies

One
Room

Two
Rooms

Three
Rooms

Four
Rooms

Five
Rooms

Six
or more

Under $12. 00 .
$12.00-$ 14.99
$15. 00-$ 19.99
$20.00 and over .

16
19

3
4
7
3

1 1
6

5
4

2
2
2

Total .

1 1

TABLE 9. — COST OF CERTAIN ARTICLES OF FOOD IN NINE CITIES
AND RATIO OF THE COST OF THESE ARTICLES IN OTHER CITIES
TO THE COST IN PITTSBURGH. — BY CENTS PER POUND*

•*e

-C!

'©*'*>

A -2

£■

5?
s

2 5?
•2.2

Article

<*>

_>u

££-

a. S

•sa

*••$

a, a.

Beans ....

.10

.lO

.08

.09

.O74

.1 1

.IO

.10

Chuck Roast .

•'3

.1 1

.06

.12

.IO

.12$

Salt Beef.

.10

.08

.06

.08

.1 1

.07

.08

.10

Bread (lb.) .

.05

•OS

•05

.05

•05

.05

Butter ....

•31

.25

•2?

.26

•31

•27

•32

•3'

Cheese ....

.18

.16

• IS

.19

.16

•IS

.16

.20

•'7

Corn meal

.02$

•03

.02$

.04

.02$

03$

.02$

.02

.02$

Lard

.10

.1 1

.12

.1 1

.12$

.12

•13

••3

Molasses (gal.)

•s1;

•ss

.60

•M

.50

.60

.40

.60

Mutton (leg) .

• irt

.12

.1 1

• 13

.1 1

.084

•13

Fresh Pork (chops)

• 13

•'4

.1 1

•<7

•<3

.12$

•13

.14$

Bacon ....

•'5

•'7

.16

.18

■ii

.20

•■7

•'7

.18

Prunes ....

.08

.07

.10

.06

.10

Rice

.08

.09

.08

.10

.09

.09$

Veal Cutlet .

.21

.28

.16

•25

.22

•'7

•'5

.19

.23$

Total

2-33

2.32

2.08$

2.40

2.26$

2.21

2.03

2.45

2.49$

Ratio

100

♦From U. S. Bureau of Labor Report, July, 1907, pp. 175-328.
203

homestead: the households of a mill town

table 10. — total average weekly expenditures of house-
renting families expending less than $12 a week, and
proportions spent for food and rent. — by racial group

Racial Group

Slav . .
Eng. Sp. Eur.
Nat. White.
Colored

Total average

*■ IT*

$8.85
10.30
9.82
8.98

$9.08

Food

$4.31
4.46

3'5
3.22

$3.81

48.7

43-3
32..
36.0

42.0

Rent

?i. 64
3.38
3.85

$2.15

■a.5
31.9
39.2
247

237

Total

$5-95
7.84
7.00

5-44

$5.96

67.2
75-2

00.7

65.7

TABLE II. — AVERAGE EXPENDITURE FOR FOOD PER MAN PER DAY.
— BY SIZE OF FAMILY AND EXPENDITURE GROUP

Under

$12.00

$12.00 TO
$14.99

$15.00 TO
$19.99

$20.00 AND

Over

Number

Num-

Average

Num-

Average

Num-

Average

Num-

Average

Family

ber of

Ex-

ber of

Ex-

ber of

Ex-

ber of

Ex-

Fam-

pendi-

Fam-

pendi-

Fam-

pendi-

Fam-

pendi-

ilies

ture

ilies

ture

ilies

ture

ilies

ture

1
2

? V27

$ -39

$'.52

.22

? -27

•45

.70

.22

•33

•35

•33

.19

•27

.21

•3»

.19

•24

.29

•27

.22

.19

.25

•27

•»3

•»5

.22

.21

.10

•39

20.J

APPENDIX

TABLES GIVING GENERAL DESCRIPTION AND AVERAGE

BUDGET
SLAVS

Under
$12

15
16

>7
IS
19 '

$12
TO

*»4-99

•ao

AMD

■a

■5 3

Slovak

3
8

8
8

Hung.

Slovak

x«.

Hung.

Slovak
II mi,:

•2

Laborer

4
3

o
o

i
i

3
4

o
o

I
2

Day man3

Laborer

Day man

Laborer

6
3

2
O

Day man

Laborer

Tonnage

Laborer

Tonnage

Day man

Laborer

Day man

Latent

hmmp

Labant

3
3

Yes
No
Yes

Yes

Yes
No

Yes

Y.s

Ye.

Remarks

Are buying home. Son, 21, also a laborer.

Neither can read nor write even in Slavic.
Niece and one other lodger.

Young couple, married here. Home well fur-
nished. Have made prosperous start.

Young couple.

Son, 14, at work. Own property in old country.

Man already arrested for intemperance and
abusing wife.

Woman frail. Several children have died.

Two little children. Have money in bank.
Only working part time.

Young couple, married here; two little chil-
dren. Are furnishing home on instalment
plan.

Poorly furnished home. A child is in old coun-
try with relatives.

Inclined to drink. Poorly furnished, unattrac-
tive home.

Intemperate man, at one time insane.

Young couple. Man earns usually about $2.25
a day. One room with but little furniture.

Came to United States when 14. Now an en-
gineer in mill. Married 6 months ago to girl
of 17.

Nephew lives with them. Woman exhausted
by hard work.

Man says his health has been affected by mill
work; he must drink to stand it. Home
fairly comfortable but small.

Have money in bank and property in old coun-
try. Only one little child.

Woman born here. Man intemperate. Home
poorly furnished. Woman fairly capable.

Man of 50, Have to take boarders to manage
on his wages.

Family came recently. Have property in old
country and also have money in bank.

Earns $2 to $3 aday. Says "has two boarders
to help earn a living."

Naturalized. Own home. Representative
older residents.

Young couple. Man only 22 but semi-skilled.
Are saving for a home.

Home poor, health not good. Take lodgers to
help inadcnuati' lncom»,

Man formerly miner. Now earns $3.50 a day
in mill. Has rheumatism. One child feeble-
minded.

Man injured in mill, out of work 10 month*,
$150 from company and income from lodgers
supports family.

Thrifty Protestant family. Home simple, but

attrartivr.
Married in Hungary. Man CUM over lir-l
Son also laborer. Has savings; drew on them

for extra expenses at death of child recently.

306

WEEKLY EXPENDITURE OF EACH OF THE NINETY
FAMILIES

SLAVS

■si-

gs.2
^ c a

■

Average Weekly Expenditure for

©■a

fe-S'o

H 2

i
1

{
]
1

8
6

$10.60
u -43

$10.58
II.47

$6.60
5-35

*
$2-75

$ .03
.28

$1.46

$ .02
.27

$2.00
•79

• .39

$ -25

*i-54
•32

11.90

11.86

4.90

2.25

.02

2-44

.10

1. 00

•15

4
7
4

6.02
6.86

8.48

$5-8o

•50

3-55

$2-37

6.03
6.87
8.49

4.80
3-8o
3-3°

1. 00

1. 14
2.00

•39
.06

• 79
3-02

$ .07

.18
.05
.09

•43

.14

•05
.06
.02

4
5
0

4
4

S-25
10.46

• So
3.87

5-22
IO.46

3-40
5-89

1. 12
2.00

.06

.04

•54
1.27

.10
.06

.40

.80

7
1

9.48

2.48

9.48

4.81

1.62

•53

.26

1. 18

1. 00

.08

9-85

4.41

9-93

3-66

1.87

°5

1.96

.06

•45

.06

.41

1.41

7.26

'•75

7-30

4-25

1.89

•05

•32

.14

•25

.02

•32

.09

5
7

8.9S
9-74

4-75

•75

8.92
9.70

4-35
3.87

2.00
.86

.42
•59

1.31
2-74

.09
.10

.38

•74

.02
.09

.16
•57

.19
.14

936

9-35

3-86

.86

.66

1.50

.26

•74

.09

1.28

.28

1 M

13-86

•75

13.87

6.96

3-50

2.31

•23

•33

•54

1368

13-68

S.81

2.29

•57

3.08

.90

$.71

•32

13-74

1373

3-79

2.50

iiS

•78

.12

.10

•78

.56

3-95

12.58

•75

12.60

584

2.00

.89

1-95

.19

.12

•25

.82

•39

12.24

7-57

1324

7-57

1-75

1. 17

•25

•23

1-75

•52

17.68

2.10

560

17.67

7.17

3-50

.82

2.12

•44

.98

.09

.90

165

19.46

1. 00

19.61

11.06

2.28

•54

2.36

1.22

.05

1.42

.04

.64

19-93*

19-95

8.26

1.40

1. 21

• •

•03

•63

.08

1-35

•65

6.34

IS-7I

15-68

7.92

2.86

.78

1.85

.22

•49

.09

1.47

••

IS-8S

3-75

15-65

7-56

1-75

•30

1-75

.38

•42

.65

.01

•9i

.04

1.88

17.00

16.26

6.61

3-75

1.97

.04

I.15

•05

2.12

•50

.07

17.46

13.71

17-45

10.77

2.50

.10

1.32

.36

I.47

•63

•30

20.34

7.19

2-37

•05

5-20

1.06

2.19

.10

.19

•43

1-56 . 27

20.29
24.10

4.49
6.64

10.00
6.66

20.21
24. XI

6.89
7.28

1.50
4.00

•13
.04

•70

3-43

•34
.27

.50
6-97

.05

.92

1.00

10.10 | 28
.20 I 29

1 Including credit.

2 Average amount purchased on credit.

3 Paid per day instead of per ton.
* Families owned home.

207

homestead: the households of a mill town

ENGLISH SPEAK-

3 „

•5 3

•»«

<».
a

0
O

IS
S 0

a*!
S5

fe a

Remarks

30 '

Under
$12

Irish

Day man

Rather shiftless family, always buy on credit.
No insurance.

Scotch

Tonnage

Two boys at work. Have good income in ordi-

nary times. Own house, free.

German

Yes

Relatives giving food during depression.

33 ■

English

Day man

Three young children. Own home.

$12

Yes

Man formerly glass blower. Irregularly em-
ployed in mill. Church gave a Tittle assist-

,TO

ance.

$14.99

Irish

Conductor

One girl at home, two children in school.

English

Laborer

Son at work, pays $5.00 a week board when
working. Thrifty family.

37 '

•is

Tonnage

Once a miner. Earns $2.50 to $3.00 a day.
Owns home, free.

S1999

Scotch

Office

Yes

Prosperous home, musical family. Have sav
ings.

English

Day man

Six children under 14.

40 ,

Irish

Laborer

Yes

Two grown sons at work. Originally miners.

$20

AND

Scotch

Teamster

Thrifty family. Home well furnished. 3 sons

at work. Own property in another town.
Man earns over $25 a week. Girl over 14 at

OVER

Tonnage

home and boy in school. Have savings. At-

tractive home.

208

APPENDIX II

ING

EUROPEANS

*S f|

Average Weekly Expenditure toe

.35.

*ll

» a

0 13

"1
a
hi

■

ft.

bjh!

$10.22

$3-97

$10.12

$5.98

$300

$ .12

$ .21

$ .46

$ .21

• •

$ .14 r 30

10.69

5 00

10.90

3.86

$1.05

•34

.20

.31

$ .20

.04 1 31

10.30

1-50

10.48

2.94

3-75

.27

.06

2.52

•15

.20

.59 1 32

14.28

2.25

14.28

6.49

2.25

.80

.09

•39

$.19

4.07

13.92

1393

5.06

2.50

5.04

•24

•3°

.02

•77

14.68

1.23

14.69

9.27

1.50

329

.27

.36

13.82

4-73

14.11

4.72

2-75

.83

•50

$ .27

.06

2.80

•32

1.86

.36

15.06

$2.14

15-93

6.80

8.85

•29

.02

18.63

18.64

5-19

5-oo

.83

1. 00

.87

2.65

•53

•52

2.0s

15-04

5-53

1502

553

2.50

312

.56

.07

1-73

•50

.22

.79

. N

29-34

*9-35

20.15

7.5o

.10

.30

.58

.12

.70

33.14

33i6

8.59

6.00

9.06

.29

.28

1-47

.02

6.58

20.11

19.91

8.60

2.54

.02

2.24

.76

.27

302

.11

.29

2.06

.42

l'Including credit.

'(Average amount purchased on credit.

•Families owned home.

209

homestead: the households of a mill town

NATIVE

It
r

a
s

8
■0.
O

« .8

is "a
I*5

8
kg

Remarks

43 '

American

Tonnage

Young man brought up on farm. Fairly com-
fortable home.
Man away a good deal. Live comfortably.

Under

Boatman

Yes

$12

Tonnage

In Homestead since a boy. Woman earns a
little. Own home.

Yes

Man ill, unable to work, family live on sick bene-
fits, savings and credit. Own home.

47 \

L $14-99

Day man

Man began work at 16 as clerk; now pencil job,

shiftless. Son messenger in mill.

Laborer

Clerical

Young German-American couple. Wife former-
ly dressmaker. Neat attractive home.

Yes

Prosperous young couple, thrifty, attractive
home.

$iS

Professional

Spend money freely. Entertain. Pay cash for
everything.

TO
$19-99

Day man

Earns about $3 a day. Have roomy house so
take a lodger. Home well cared for.

Two young sons in mill help support family.
Own home free. Well insured.

Have bought home in suburb. Woman compe-
tent.

Man has fair salary. Spend freely for what they

want. Good home.

Day man

Old residents of Homestead. _ Man worked here
before strike. Boy works in mill irregularly.

Clerical

Middle aged couple. Man semi-official position.

Had some unusual expenses so took lodgers.
Man not much good. Two sons practically sup-

Tonnage

port family. Own homo.
Old residents of Homestead. Have comfortable.

Day man

small home.

Went to school till 17. Since in mill. Earns
about $3.50 a day. Very nice home.

$20
AND

Clerical

Man has small business of his own. Family
prosperous, own home, have bank account.
Son 16 in school.

OVER

Own home in suburb. Son in mill. Daughter
at home.

Day man

German descent. Man earns about $2.25 a day.

Earns about $3 a day. One child. Small home,
have savin;-..

Professional

Live well.

Tonnage

Ten years in Homestead. Man earns about

$3.50 a day. Savings in bank. Well furnished

hOBW. Irish-American.

f t

Man had small stort; which he sold. Family liv-

ing on savings. One son at work, pays $5 a
week board.

.Uu

APPENDIX II

WHITE

•St"

0 .4 re.1 Available
■K Income Weeks
o | Studied

"jjj

■

Average
Weekly Ex-
penditures

Average Weekly Expenditure for

■

3 8

■

$ -50

% 9.14

$ 4-50

$ 2.50

$.oS

$.64

$.30

$ .06

$.38

$06

$.65

5
4

10.49
9.29

•50

10.49
8-75

I.79
6.50

520

•

•35

1.04
.63

1.40

.11
.06

.67

$.05
.14

$ .02

•53

•75

44
45

9-35

2.62

9-35

4-38

.40

1.41

.08

.20

1.20

.13

.60

•95

.46

12.80

1-75

12.80

592

300

■5i

•77

.40

•25

1.07

.03

•8S { 47

8
4

19-37
16.96

2.50

$ 312

19-33
16.94

8-33
6.19

2.50

3-33

2.13
530

03
•17

.64
.26

151
1. 00

.04

•73

3-42
.69

48
40

18.04

• 50

18.07

6.31

4.84

1. 11

x.18

.48

.68

•36

I.82

I.29

17-39

17-38

5-4i

5.00

.82

•31

•49

i-75

.12

348

19-53

19-51

6.52

3-75

.48

3.08

1.88

.83

I-5I

•05

•59

.82

5-*

18.16

18.12

6.22

-76

1.20

2.43

• 29

1.08

6.14

15.09

1.06

1507

8.64

1-35

1-33

•76

2.27

.12

.50

.10

19-05

19.03

4.21

4-52

.58

2.82

.91

1. 01

.98

.21

.20

•37

3.22

. 55

21.09

21-03

8.02

2.21

•45

5-37

1.44

.60

■34

.29

•75

i.S6

22.00

21.97

362

1. 00

.28

•17

•35

i°-S5

20.92

8.56

1. 00

1.39

*-75

.22

*-55

.90

3-55

22.42

1. 00

22.46

6.83

5-0O

1. 00

1-52

2.50

•32

.28

.04

497

22.57

22.56

9.22

5.00

3-43

.80

1.02

2.50

•59

24.84

7-97

7-15

3-71

3.04

2.97

23-59

312

23-57

9.94

1.44

9.02

.83

•99

.20

.04

1. 11

28.95
29.24

8.00

28.9s
29.24

8.50
8-37

11.20
500

1.82
.69

1-34
3-74

.84

.38
•77

4-SO

.08

.28
.21

.40
1.84

3 96
4.1a

5
4

29.81
34-14

4.00

29.81
34-18

5-21

14.04

7-oS
4.00

.66
2.47

2.46
1.62

5-57

•99
•31

2.23
.66

•35

•9»
i.aS

10.29
3-91

38.29

1. 00

36.49

38.29

20.89

5.00

•53

8.47

■31

1.47

.19

.46

•97

1 Including credit.

3 Average amount purchased on credit.

* Families owned home.

211

homestead: the households of a mill town

COLORED

.■3-0.

681

69
70
7i
72

7.?
74
75

80
Si

8s
86
87
88
89

I'sm k

$13

$14-99

$IS
TO

$10.00

$20

AMD
OVER

Negro

Window cleaner
Janitor
Teamster

Laborer
lluon

Day man

Housework

Tonnage

Teamster

Tonnage

Hod carrier

Tonnage

Laborer

Teamster

Tonnage

Housework

Day man

Painter

Teamster

gftj

■

Yes

2
2

0
1

Yes

Remarks

Widow, earns living by laundry work and taking

boarders. One child at home.
Man began work as chore boy. Work irregular.

Rooms poorly furnished and unsanitary.
Man out of work. Woman earns a little. Mar-
ried children help.
Young couple with one child. Wife good

natured but totally ignorant.
Young couple. Home neat and well furnished

but dark and unsanitary.
Middle aged couple. Pleasant home.
Man formerly miner. Two dark rooms.
Man intemperate. Woman largely supports

home. Son unruly.
Small dark tenement but neatly furnished and

well cared for. One small child.
One son at work, rest of income from five men

lodgers.
Small pay comparatively. Have comfortable

home on hill, good garden.

Here only a few years, from Virginia. Little
house. Six families share one yard.

Small shabby unsanitary home. Man's work
irregular in winter.

Earns $2.50 to $3 a day. Nice home, well fur-
nished.

Man's work very irregular. Home unsanitary;
children sickly.

Began work on a farm, now earning about $2.50
a day. Simple but well furnished and cheerful
home, good garden.

Young married couple with one child. Small

neat home.
Exceptionally attractive home with large garden.

Woman competent, man devoted to home.
Woman supports family, washing and lodgers.

One son idle. Family rather degenerate.

Went to work at 10 picking cotton, at 18 into
1: 1
Here from South

> pi
mines, now semi-skilled in mill; live over store.

Woman helps support family
8 years

Elderly couple. Two grown sons also teamsters.
Rather poor home.

212

APPENDIX II

COLORED

.3*.

ffcl

-. «to

EaJ

Average Weekly Expenditure for

■0

I
US

$ 7-93

$1.33

$ 7 90

$302

$2.50

$ .08

t -Si

$.50

$ .16

t .18

$ .02

$.06

$.87

9-93

1. 25

9.92

432

1-75

.78

.69

.03

1.02

• 27

• •

•97

.09

3-24

3-32

1.21

1.5°

.04

•25

•05

•03

•24

10.13

.50

10.07

301

2.50

.69

.92

•53

.99

.67

.76

-•

9-SO

9-5°

319

2.00

•71

•92

•33

•57

.19

•30

1.29

4
S
7

11.79
7-OS
7.70

11.79
7.06
7.69

4.12
2.52

430

2.50
2.00
2.00

1-39

.21
•30

.64
•29

!o8

»5
•13
.13

1.80

1.18

.29

.14

•25
05

.70

1.02

•25

74
75

11.34

3.07

11.38

307

2.30

1.00

3.15

.20

.38

.26

.02

$ .07

113

11. 18

•50

11. 18

376

2.50

1.76

.30

.13

1.61

•30

•83

8.90

8.99

2.93

3.OO

.02

1.02

.06

.98

,78

1232

12.27

4.27

I.8l

1.28

•79

•37

.33

•65

.06

.41

2.40

12.36

6.32

2.O0

i-45

.56

.31

•37

14.68

14.78

3-99

4.OO

.68

2.38

1-75

.12

•17

.11

•05

•43

1. 10

12.4a

8.42

12.47

3-51

1.88

.03

2.09

•17

.07

4.12

.60

12.09

4-56

12.12

8.06

2.50

1. 17

•3D

.09

12.28

2-73

12.29

6.23

2.00

1-45

.09

•39

.08

1.09

.96

16.86

16.88

6.88

3.80

.40

1-77

.11

1.41

.01

5.00

1.50

2.00

19.80

8.27

4.00

.38

113

•59

2.50

.69

2.37

18.39

1.30

18.41

5.16

2.50

•71

1 -05

•85

1.04

.01

500

.74

1 35

15-77

1-75

15-84

S-oo

2.50

1. 17

1.38

.62

•73

.81

.18

1.98

1.47

18.27

8.00

18.27

9.68

3.00

2.65

•25

•37

.18

3.14

.89

20.74

8-45

2.50

1.62

•07

4.60

••

.62

1.98

1 Including credit.

' Average amount purchased on credit

* Families owned home.

213

-3D

ujZ
HO
coU

Hit-

Hz®

Sfcx
z A

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< HOO

UJUJ

=££
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►r co

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— (J

years
and
over

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214

APPENDIX IV

CLASSIFICATION AND EARNINGS OF EMPLOYES IN

THREE REPRESENTATIVE STEEL PLANTS OF

THE PITTSBURGH DISTRICT,

OCTOBER 1, 1907

I28-INCH PLATE MILL

Men Earning Over $3.33 Per Day Earnings

(i. e., over $20 for six-day week) Number Per Day

Supts., General Foremen, 30*— 42* — 128" . 2 ?6.oj

Heaters 4 7.21

Rollers 2 8.44

Rollers' Assistants 10 4.40

Shearmen 6 5.58

Heaters' Helpers 2 4.09

Markers 12 3.50

Roll Engineers 2

Crane and Machine Operators 6

4*18

Men Earning $2.50 to I3.33 Per Day
(i. e., $15 to 1 19.99 for six-day week)

Clerks, Timekeepers and Weighers . . . .18 I2.63

Rollers' Assistants 4 2.83

Shearmen 3 3.13

Shearmen Helpers 38 3.30

Inspectors 7 2.70

Millwrights 6 2.68

Shippers and Checkers 7 2.89

Men Earning $2.00 to $2.49 Per Day
(i. e., $12 to 1 14.99 f°r six-day week)

Markers 3 $2.17

Shearmen Helpers 4 2.07

Crane and Machine Operators 10 2.33

Common Labor, Unspecified Positions ... 20 2.40

Men Earning Under $2.00 Per Day
(i. e., under $12 for six-day week)
Common Labor (16J cents per hour) . . .49 fi.82

215

homestead: the households of a mill town

23-INCH STRUCTURAL MILL

Men Earning Over $3.33 Per Day Earnings

(i. e., over $20 for six-day week) Number Per Day

Supts., General Foremen 1 $4.61

Heaters 6 4.98

Rollers 2 7.38

Rollers' Assistants 8 3.83

Men Earning $2.50 to $3.33 Per Day
(i. e., $ 15 to ? 1 9.99 for sixKiay week)

Foremen 5 I2.80

Clerks, Timekeepers and Weighers .... 4 2.53

Heaters' Helpers 6 2.99

Hot Sawyer and Push Over 2 2.77

Straighteners 10 2.79

Cold Sawyers 8 2.70

Crane and Machine Operators 4 3.23

Engineers, Stationary 4 2.76

Inspectors 2 2.70

Men Earning I2.00 to $2.49 Per Day
(i. e., $12 to 1 1 4.99 for six-day week)

Clerks, Timekeepers and Weighers .

Crane and Machine Operators 8

Checkers

4
4
8

$2.33
2.47
2.16

2.04

Men Earning Under $2.00 Per Day
(i. e., under $12 for six-day week)

Common Labor (16J cents an hour)

" Unspecified Positions .

50
23

I..98
..65

38-INCH BLOOMING MILL

Men Earning Over I3.33 Per Day Earnings

(i. e., over $20 for six-day week) Number Per Day

Rollers 2 $6.47

Heaters 3 6.47

Supts., General Foremen 1 3.65

Foremen 4 3.52

Heaters' Helpers 8 3.77

Shearmen 2 3.77

2l6

APPENDIX IV

Men Earning $2.50 to $3.33 Per Day Earnings
(i. e., $15 to $19.99 f°r six-day week) Number Per Day

Clerks, Timekeepers and Weighers .... 4 $2.67

Rollers' Assistants 4 3.00

Shear Helpers 8 2.58

Inspectors 2 2.70

Engineers, Roll Engine 4 3.04

Crane and Machine Operators 4 3.19

Engineers, Narrow Gauge 2 2.94

Millwrights 6 2.66

Men Earning $2.00 to $2.49 Per Day
(i. e., $12 to $14.99 for six-day week)

Clerks, Timekeepers and Weighers .... 7 $2.48

Engineers, Stationary 2 2.37

Common Labor Unspecified Positions per 1 00 tons 2 2.16

Crane and Machine Operators 10 2.02

Men Earning Under $2.00 Per Day
(i. e., under $12 for six-day week)

Common Labor (16J cents per hour) ... 58 $198

" Unspecified Positions ... 13 1.90

217

APPENDIX V

AN ACT TO ENABLE BOROUGH COUNCILS TO ESTAB-
LISH BOARDS OF HEALTH. STATE OF
PENNSYLVANIA, 1893

Town Council or Burgess
shall appoint a Board of
Health to consist of five
persons.

Length of term of first ap-
pointees.

Shall be appointed by dis-
tricts.

Duties, etc., of board, how
regulated.

Members to be sworn and
shall organize annually.

Section i. Be it enacted, etc., that it shall
be the duty of the President of the town council, or
burgess where he is the presiding officer, of every
borough in this Commonwealth, within six months
after the passage of this Act, to nominate and by
and with the consent of the council to appoint a
board of health of such borough to consist of five
persons not members of the council, one of whom
shall be a reputable physician of not less than two
years' standing in the practice of his profession.
At the first appointment the president of the town
council, or burgess where he is the presiding officer,
shall designate one of the members to serve for one
year, one to serve for two years, one to serve for
three years, one to serve for four years and one to
serve for five years, and thereafter one member of
said board shall be appointed annually to serve for
five years. The board shall be appointed by dis-
tricts to be fixed by the town council, representing
as equally as may be all portions of the borough.
The members shall serve without compensation.

Section 2. The duties, responsibilities,
powers and prerogatives of said board shall be
identical with those assigned to boards of health of
cities of the third class by sections three, four, five,
six and seven of article eleven of the Act of May
twenty-third, one thousand eight hundred and
eighty-nine, entitled "An act providing for the in-
corporation and government of cities of the third
class," which reads as follows, due allowance being
made for the difference in the municipal govern-
ment of cities and boroughs.

Section 3. The members of the board shall
severally take and subscribe the oath prescribed for
2l8

APPENDIX V

Salaries.

Bonds.

Fee to be paid into the
borough treasury.

President and secretary
shall have power to ad-
minister oaths.

Powers and duties of board
as to infectious diseases.

May establish hospitals.

borough officers, and shall annually organize by the
choice of one of their number as president. They
shall elect a secretary, who shall keep the minutes of
their proceedings and perform such other duties as
may be directed by the board, and a health officer
who shall execute the orders of the board, and for
that purpose the said health officer shall have and
exercise the powers and authority of a policeman
of the borough. The secretary and the health offi-
cer shall receive such salary as may be fixed by
the board, and they shall hold their offices during
the pleasure of the board. They shall severally
give bond to the borough in such sums as may be
fixed by ordinance for the faithful discharge of their
duties, and shall also take and subscribe the oath
required by members of the board. All fees which
shall be collected or received by the board or by
any officer thereof in his official capacity, shall
be paid over into the borough treasury monthly, to-
gether with all penalties which shall be recovered
for the violation of any regulation of the board. The
president and secretary shall have full power to ad-
minister oaths of affirmation in any proceedings or in-
vestigation touching upon the regulation of the board,
but shall not be entitled to receive any fee therefor.
Section 4. The said board of health shall
have power, and it shall be their duty, to make and
enforce all needful rules and regulations to prevent
the introduction and spread of infectious or contag-
ious diseases, by the regulation of intercourse with in-
fected places, by the arrest, separation and treat-
ment of infected persons, and persons who shall
have been exposed to any infectious or contagious
disease, and by abating and removing all nuisances
which they shall deem prejudicial to public health;
to enforce vaccination, to mark infected houses or
places, to prescribe rules for the construction and
maintenance of house drains, water pipes, soil pipes
and cess-pools, and to make all such other regula-
tions as they shall deem necessary for the preserva-
tion of the public health. They shall also have
power with the consent of the councils in any case
of the prevalence of any contagious or infectious
diseases within the borough to establish one or
more hospitals and to make provisions and regu-

219

homestead: the households of a mill town

May appoint district phy-
sicians and sanitary agents.

Duties of all practicing
physicians.

Abatement of nuisances.

Costs and expenses.

May maintain system of
registration of marriages
and births and deaths.

Board shall publish neces-
sary rules and regulations.

lations for the management of same. The board
may in such cases appoint as many ward or district
physicians and other sanitary agents as they may
deem necessary whose salaries shall be fixed by the
board before their appointment. It shall be the
duty of all physicians practicing in the borough to
report to the secretary of said board of health the
names and residences of all persons coming under
their professional care afflicted with such contagious
or infectious diseases, in the manner directed by
said board.

Section 5. The said board of health shall
have power, as a body or by committee, as well as
the health officer, together with his subordinates,
assistants and workmen, under and by orders of
the said board, to enter at any time upon any
premises in the borough upon which there is sus-
pected to be any infectious or contagious disease or
nuisance detrimental to the public health for the
purpose of examining and abating the same; and all
written orders for the removal of nuisance issued
to the said health officer by order of said board,
attested by the secretary, shall be executed by him
and his subordinates and workmen, and the costs and
expenses thereof shall be recoverable from the
owner or owners of the premises from which the
nuisance shall be removed or from any person or
persons causing or maintaining the same, in the
same manner as debts of like account are now by
law collected.

Section 6. The said board of health shall
have power to create and maintain a complete and
accurate system of the registration of all marriages,
births and deaths which may occur within the
borough and to compel obedience of the same upon
the part of all physicians and other medical prac-
titioners, clergymen, magistrates, undertakers, sex-
tons and all other persons from whom information
for such purposes may properly be required. The
board shall make and cause to be published, all
necessary rules and regulations for carrying into
effect the powers and functions with which they
are hereby invested, which rules and regulations,
when approved by the borough council and chief
burgess, and when advertised in the same manner

a so

APPENDIX V

How penalties, etc., shall
be recovered.

Board shall submit estimate
of probable receipts and
expenditures.

Council to make appro-
priation.

Shall submit an annual re-
port.

Communication with State
(Board) Commissioner of
Health.

Repeal.

as other ordinances, shall have the force of ordi-
nances of the borough, and all penalties for the vio-
lation thereof, as well as the expenses necessarily
incurred, in carrying the same into effect, shall be
recoverable for the use of the borough in the same
manner as penalties for the violation of borough
ordinances subject to the like limitations as to the
amount thereof.

Section 7. It shall be the duty of the board
of health to submit annually to the council before
the commencement of the fiscal year, an estimate of
the probable receipts and expenditures of the board
during the ensuing year, and the council shall then
proceed to make such appropriation thereto as they
shall deem necessary; and the said board shall in
the month of January of each year submit a report
in writing to the council of its operations for the
preceding year with the necessary statistics, together
with such information or suggestions relative to
the sanitary conditions and requirements of the
borough as it may deem proper, and the council
shall publish the same, in its official journal. It
shall also be the duty of the board to communicate
to the State (Board) Commissioner of Health, at
least annually notice of its organization and member-
ship, and copies of all its reports and publications,
together with such sanitary information as may
from time to time be required by said State
(Board) Department.

Section 8. All acts or parts of acts inconsis-
tent with or contrary to the provisions of this act are
hereby repealed.

Approved — The 1 ith day of May, A. D. 1893.

Robt. E. Pattison

221

APPENDIX VI

REPORT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH OF THE BOROUGH

OF HOMESTEAD FOR THE YEAR ENDING

DEC. 31, 1908*

To the President and Members of the Council of the Borough of

Homestead.
Gentlemen : —

We submit to your honorable body a report of the work
accomplished by your Board during the past year. The Sanitary
Work as reviewed in our last report has been carried on as vigor-
ously as at any time in the past, and the work done in this respect
will speak for itself in figures compiled for that purpose herein-
after incorporated. Besides taking care of the regular work of
our department, we have given no little attention to the milk
question. With the help of the Council we have been able to have
passed and approved a set of Model Rules and Regulations
governing every phase of conditions whereby the town can be kept
in a clean and sanitary condition if the same are obeyed, and giving
us power to punish the offender if the same are not obeyed. As
we have said before, the milk question has been given more atten-
tion than has been customary in the past, as this question has
become a real live one, and there are not many users of milk in a
municipality who ever give the question a thought as to what the
conditions and surroundings are at the barns from which they
derive their milk supply. There is no commodity that is so
susceptible to surrounding conditions 'and which is so easily con-
taminated as milk. If barns and their surroundings are not kept
in an extraordinary sanitary condition the odors arising from the
filth contaminate the milk and make it unwholesome. Your
Board has gone into this phase of the question thoroughly and
had one of the Inspectors from the State Board investigate every
•For an interesting comment on The Pittsburgh Survey see p. 224.

222

APPENDIX VI

dairy from which Homestead draws its milk supply and make a
written report of each one separately to us, and on an average the
majority of the dairies were in a fair condition. A few were above
the average and are model dairies, while a- few were in a filthy
condition and were given the option by your Board of either bring-
ing the same up to the standard within a specified period or cease
selling milk within the corporate limits of the Borough. We are
pleased to say that there is a steady improvement going on in the
few real bad dairies, and we shall not cease our crusade against
them until they are up to the standard required by law. We have
also had some prosecutions against local dealers for selling adul-
terated milk, and in all prosecutions disposed of to date, conviction
has been secured and the guilty parties fined. This is the worst
feature of the milk business we have to contend with. During
the summer months formaldehyde, a rank poison, is put in the milk
by unscrupulous dealers for the purpose of preserving it, and as a
general rule the amount of formaldehyde used for preserving
purposes when drank with the milk, will not injure an adult
person, but is, without a doubt, fatal to children. This has been
demonstrated by our most eminent medical men, and we are de-
termined to continue prosecutions against all violators of the law
in this respect. As no human being could conceive of a more
dastardly or contemptible piece of work under the guise of modern
business methods than this, any contamination of food to be con-
sumed by human beings, and especially that used by infants,
should be, and we are determined shall be, prosecuted to the limit
of the law. We have made a start in this direction and we shall
continue until the law is fully respected in this particular. We
have also begun an innovation by requesting the milk dealers to
co-operate with us in the thorough cleansing of the milk bottles
before refilling, and in this respect we have demanded that they
be not allowed to deliver milk in bottles to houses where a con-
tagious or infectious disease has developed, believing that by this
method we can prevent, to a certain extent, the spread of these
diseases, as milk bottles used in houses, where contagious or
infectious diseases have developed, if not thoroughly cleansed,
are liable to become contaminated and carry these diseases into
other homes. So we believe much good will come from this order

223

homestead: the households of a mill town

if properly lived up to, and if any violators of this order are caught
we propose to destroy the bottles in question, as we consider this
necessary for the preservation of the good health of the community.

SANITARY CONDITIONS
With respect to the general sanitary conditions of the town
we are of the opinion that the work we have accomplished since
our last report justifies us in saying that the general conditions are
considerably better than they were one year ago. During the
first part of the year we requested the co-operation of the public
in general to assist us in making the sanitary conditions of the
Borough the best in its history by procuring garbage cans that
would not leak, and keep the same covered at all times, and to
keep all garbage and refuse matter in these cans, and have the
same emptied at least once each week, as specified in the Borough
Ordinance, and urged them not to throw these substances, so
deleterious and dangerous to the public health, around openly in
the yard, and in this respect we can say we have reason to compli-
ment the largest portion of our population for complying with this
order and co-operating with the Board for the benefit of not only
themselves, but for the entire community. While, on the other
hand, certain classes of people, as you will find in every community
pay no attention whatever to sanitary measures and have to be
compelled by our Inspectors to even keep clean the inside of the
house in which they live. This condition is unwarranted in a
civilized community, but nevertheless true. In some instances
to get them to obey the law in this respect we are compelled to
resort to prosecution, but we are determined to keep the Borough
in a clean, sanitary condition at any cost.

A LITTLE ABOUT THE PITTSBURG SURVEY WITH REGARD TO
CONDITIONS IN HOMESTEAD

The conditions portrayed by this Survey had a tendency to
exaggerate to a certain degree. It is not our intention to criticize
the work done by this Survey or to do anything to interfere in
any manner with the good the originators of this Survey expect to
accomplish. In what manner they expected to accomplish any

224

APPENDIX VI

good is beyond our comprehension. The mere fact of going into a
locality and portraying the conditions existing there, and then
producing them in miniature and exhibiting them in large centers
of population away from where the actual conditions exist, does
not in any way improve the conditions of that particular locality.
It has been true ever since the world began that to accomplish
or to succeed in any way or in any thing one must work intelli-
gently and industriously, and the only way that we can conceive
that conditions can be bettered in the Second Ward, Homestead,
is by work such as your Board has been doing, and not by exhibi-
tion, as done by the Pittsburg Survey. And then again conditions
exhibited by them are not the true conditions as existing today.
This survey was taken nearly two years ago, and if you will peruse
our last annual report you will perceive that we had undertaken
during the year 1907 to disseminate the occupants of overcrowded
houses, and an inspection of the locality referred to will reveal the
fact as to what extent we have succeeded in relieving the conges-
tion of overcrowded houses. We have been carrying this work
along without abatement during the past two years, and we realize
even at this time that conditions are not ideal by any means.
Yet we have accomplished so much along this line that the real
bad conditions found two years ago, are not to be found to-day.
Occasionally it is brought to our notice that there is an overcrowded
house, and our officers are immediately dispatched with orders to
compel the vacation of some of the occupants, and in all cases the
orders have been obeyed. It is impossible to prevent the over-
crowding of houses, as the occupants can move in while the officers
are not in that immediate vicinity. But when we discover such
conditions exist we promptly have them remedied. It is hard to
keep conditions as they should be in this particular locality, but
we can truly say we are doing our best along this line, and we are
of the opinion that we are accomplishing something. So, with
all due respect to the Pittsburg Survey, we are still of the opinion
that conditions found by them to exist in the Second Ward and
exhibited by them in the Pittsburg Carnegie Library are not the
true conditions as exist in the Second Ward to-day.

is 225

homestead: the households of a mill town

THE SPITTING ORDINANCE

In our last report we congratulated Council on the enactment
of an ordinance prohibiting spitting on the sidewalks and in public
places, and endeavored to demonstrate why such an ordinance
should be rigidly enforced for the good of the entire community.
Some little work has been done along this line, but not enough to
justify the assertion. We are still of the opinion that this is a
splendid measure, and believe much good will come from its
enforcement. Our greatest authorities on scientific matters have
demonstrated and tell us, that germs of disease are communicated
from one person to another in this manner, thereby causing a
larger majority of communicable diseases than we otherwise
would have if this measure was enforced. It is an unsightly thing
to observe where people have expectorated all along the sidewalk,
and should be stopped, if for no other reason than this. But
when the influences for contagion are taken into consideration
there should be no hesitancy in a strict enforcement of this
ordinance. We therefore recommend that the proper officers be
authorized to give this matter their careful attention by enforcing
this measure, as we believe the results obtained from such a crusade
will justify our confidence in this ordinance from a sanitary point
of view.

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES

Jan. i, 1908, to Jan. i, 1909

Measles 112

Typhoid Fever 28

Pneumonia 24

Chicken Pox 18

Diphtheria 14

Scarlet Fever 15

Pulmonary Tuberculosis 16

Cerebro-spinal Meningitis 6

Erysipelas 5

Whooping Cough 4

Tetanus 1

Mumps 4

Incipient Tuberculosis 1

Total . 248

226

APPENDIX VI

WORK OF OUR OFFICERS

We especially ask that a careful perusal be given to the work
accomplished by our officers during the past year. Our officers
have done all the fumigating, as in the previous year, and following
is a complete review of the work accomplished, and we will leave
it to the opinion of the reader as to whether or not the work done
and the results obtained justify the amount expended for this
purpose.

Fumigated after the abatement of contagious diseases, 135
rooms; dead animals hauled from off the streets, 1 1 1 ; compelled
the cleaning of 2, 1 58 yards; compelled the cleaning of 337 cellars;
made owners clean in entirety 89 houses; compelled the putting
in a sanitary condition 79 stables; supervised the cleaning of 391
closets; compelled the abandonment of 42 closets; .had 55 closets
in yards discontinued and placed in the houses instead; compelled
the opening of 206 clogged sewers; condemned 3 buildings;
tacked up 300 garbage notices; succeeded in installing 78 new
garbage cans; visited 56 families in quest of contagious diseases;
served 70 notices to principals of schools of contagious diseases
existing in families whose children were school pupils; served
494 written notices and 2,125 verbal ones to landlords, agents and
tenants to remove garbage and rubbish from premises; compelled
the removal of 54 boarders and 25 beds from overcrowded houses;
had 7 manure boxes removed from alleys; notified and compelled
31 persons to procure proper receptacles for garbage; served 45
copies of the new Milk Ordinance to milk dealers and 30 copies
to milk shippers, and collected for analysis 24 samples of milk
from dealers.

Outside of the work enumerated above our officers have
given quite a little attention to sanitary conditions relative to
proper sewering facilities in the Borough proper and more especially
in the Third Ward. Conditions in some parts of this ward were
exceedingly bad at the beginning of last year, but with a proper
portrayal of conditions by our officers to the Street Committee
of Council, we succeeded in having Council remedy the conditions
by the extension of sewers to these districts, the result being that
we were enabled thereby to make some wonderful improvements

227

homestead: the households of a mill town

along a sanitary line in this ward. Our officers are yet of the
opinion that conditions could and should be benefited still farther
by the construction of sewers on Maple street and Seventeenth
avenue, and we respectfully submit this opinion to the Council
for their consideration. As a whole we are of the opinion that
our officers have done remarkably well during the past year and
we believe a study of the work accomplished will verify and justify
our belief along this line. We therefore submit this part of the
report to your respectful consideration.

WITH RESPECT TO EPIDEMICS
Measles was our leading contagious disease during the past
year which was also true of the previous year. Out of the 1 1 2 cases
for the entire year 55 of them developed in the month of January,
and the large majority of these cases being in the hill district or
Third Ward. These cases developed in so close proximity to one
another and so fast that they gave your board some little concern,
but it was finally gotten under control without the inconvenience
of resorting to any measures of a harsh nature. Epidemics of
this disease are caused through the carelessness of some person
and we desire to ask and persuade all parents to be very careful
and not allow their children to mingle with any member of the
family or to allow any outsider to come into the house while there
is a case of measles in the household. We desire to inform every-
body that the majority of people look upon measles as a harmless
disease, and in fact they have every reason to do so, as the death
rate from measles has been very low in the past. But the con-
tinual negligence in the care of patients suffering with measles, by
allowing them to come in contact with other people, will result in
an epidemic of this disease which will result in a harvest of deaths
and compel your Board to institute a quarantine as rigid as in
cases of smallpox, thereby inconveniencing the whole community.
So for the good of the whole people we ask the co-operation of the
entire citizenship of the Borough to appoint themselves a com-
mittee to enforce the health regulations with respect to contagious
diseases by agreeing to keep all patients afflicted with contagious
or infectious diseases isolated in such a manner that it will be
impossible for these diseases to spread beyond the house in which it

228

APPENDIX VI

developed. This can be done with very little effort on the part
of the people, and by so doing a more healthful condition can
be established and much concern and anxiety eliminated for not
only your Board but for the entire populace. Let us get together
and have co-operation in this respect and ascertain what result
can be obtained in the coming year.

ANOTHER WORD TO PHYSICIANS
In our last annual report we gave a short talk to the physi-
cians of the Borough with respect to their negligence in reporting
contagious diseases, and when we inserted that paragraph in our
last report we did not think it would be necessary for us to again
resume this advice one year hence. But we still believe, as we
did one year ago, that there has developed and existed quite a
number of diseases designated as contagious under the law, that
have not been reported as required by the Act of Assembly. The
diseases that seem to compare the worse are pneumonia, mumps
and whooping cough. There is no physician in the Borough who
would care to be accused of being a law breaker, still some of them
are doing that very thing every month in the year. The diseases
enumerated above are exceedingly prevalent in some seasons of
the year, and we ask the physicians to peruse the table appearing
in this report and see if it is his opinion that this is the correct
number of these diseases existing in the Borough during the past
year. We think each one will agree with us that a considerable
portion of said diseases have never been reported. And on the
other hand the physicians not only owe it to themselves as law
abiding citizens, but they owe it more so to the community at
large. For in the event of a physician not reporting a very
dangerous contagious disease, the Health Board not having
knowledge of its existence, some unscrupulous person allows the
child infected to enter school. Said action may result in an
epidemic of this disease, and death may result. This is not a
square deal, gentlemen. You are not doing your duty in the
manner provided by law, and you are doing an injustice by so
neglecting, to every citizen of this Borough. The law requires
that these diseases be reported and provides a penalty for a viola-
tion. We warned you a year ago about your neglect in this respect

229

homestead: the households of a mill town

and we again inform you that our advice was not heeded and you
have again been negligent. We have concluded that we are, and
have been wasting time and energy in being lenient with you, and
if this warning does not result in stricter application to the letter
of the law in reporting the diseases therein specified, we have
concluded that we will detail an officer on this line of the work and
arrest all violators irrespective of who they are. We did not think
when we issued a warning a year ago that it would be necessary
for us to institute a threat in order to get the physicians of this
Borough to obey the law in this respect, and we feel sorry to have
to acknowledge that our confidence was misplaced with regard to
this issue. We are of the opinion that we have come to the point
when patience has ceased to be a virtue, and harsher measures
must be employed. The measures agreed upon have been recited
previously in this letter. We therefore would advise that the
physicians give this their attention and govern themselves accord-
ingly.

BIRTHS

Born of American parents 360

Born of foreign parents 558

Total 918

Of these were white 877

Of these were black 41

Total 918

BIRTHS SEPARATED ACCORDING TO NATIONALITY OF PARENTS

American 360

Austrian 341

Russian 54

English 33

Irish 26

Italian 25

Polish 22

Slavish 21

German 18

Scotch 10

Roumanian 2

Welsh 2

Arabian 1

Syrian 1

Swede 1

Greek 1

Total 918

230

APPENDIX VI

A comparison of this table with the one of last year will
reveal the fact that identically the same number of children were
born as during the previous year, and a comparison of the births
and deaths for two years certainly shows that there is no race
suicide in Homestead, as we have almost three times as many
births as we have deaths.

DEATHS
Jan. i, 1908, to Jan. 1, 1909

Still-born and premature births -jy

Pneumonia . . 72

Gastro-enteritis and Marasmus, Enterocolitis .... 67

Tuberculosis 28

Nephritis 16

Convulsions 15

Meningitis, now specific 14

Heart Disease 13

Bronchitis 13

Cirrhosis of liver 10

Accidental and Suicide . .9

Acute Indigestion 4

Apoplexy 3

Cerebral Hemorrhage 3

Membranous Croup . . .2

Typhoid Fever 2

Alcoholism 2

La Grippe 2

Puerperal Fever 2

Acute Peritonitis 2

Erysipelas

Necrosis

Scarlet Fever

Asthma

Pleurisy

Jaundice, Acute

Whooping Cough

Meningitis, Malignant

Paralysis

Tonsillitis

Progressive Anemia

Cholera Morbus

Total 368

A comparison with the report of last year shows a decrease
in the death rate of 48. In 1907 the total deaths were 416 and
in 1908 it was 368, which is very gratifying. In 1907 we had 6
deaths from typhoid fever, in 1908 we had only 2. This is a con-
dition that is almost beyond belief. Two deaths from typhoid
fever is certainly a low estimate for a population of 17,000, and

231

homestead: the households of a mill town

we believe bears out our statement that the general sanitary con-
ditions of the Borough have improved considerably. During very
prevalent epidemics of measles, such as we experienced last
January, many children die of pneumonia, and while no deaths
are recorded with measles as the primary cause, still in a large
number of cases it was the contributory cause. The same is true
of some cases of typhoid fever. Only two deaths are recorded
from this disease as the primary cause, yet a few deaths are
recorded from pneumonia where typhoid fever was the contribu-
tory cause. But even at that we consider we have been fortunate
with this disease.

COST AND EXPENSE FOR THE YEAR

Officers' and Secretary's Salaries $1,730.00

Printing 224.20

Formaldehyde 86.40

Inspecting Dairies 4984

Hauling Dead Animals 31 .50

General Expense 26.00

Supplies '5-93

Freight 1.89

Total $2,165.76

The cost of carrying on the work of the department is nearly
five hundred dollars less than it was for the year 1907. Attention
to smallpox cases was a large item in our expense during the previ-
ous year. There being no cases of this disease during the past
year gave us a saving in this respect. The printing bill is a large
item in this year's expense account and we desire this shall be
understood. The model rules and regulations adopted by your
Board during the past year we had printed in book form and
distributed throughout the community, a sort of publicity cam-
paign for the enlightenment and education of the people to the
methods employed by your Board for the preservation of the good
health of the community, and we believe the literature issued has
justified the expense incurred.

Respectfully submitted,

ANDREW HILL, Secretary.

232

APPENDIX VII

RECORD OF CASUALTIES ON UNPROTECTED GRADE
CROSSINGS, HOMESTEAD, 1905-1907*

THE Board of Trade has compiled a record of the grade cross-
ing accidents which have taken place in Homestead from
Jan. i, 1905, up to the present time, which will be used in
an effort they propose to put forth to secure safety gates. The
record shows that 23 people have met death and 25 have been per-
manently injured on grade crossings.

Just how to proceed to get safety gates seems hard to
determine. Some citizens argue that the borough can compel the
railroads to construct safety gates by legislation and some that it
cannot, and as there is no state law covering the point there seems
to be nothing to go by.

McKeesport has at last forced the railroad companies to
come to time simply by passing an ordinance declaring that the
safety gates must be constructed at all the crossings by a certain
time. When the ordinance was first passed the railroad officials
only laughed at it and declared the city could not enforce the
ordinance, but when the time for action came and they found the
city officials determined, they came around and agreed to put up
the gates and the material is now on the grounds ready for con-
struction to begin.

Mayor Coleman, when he was in Homestead Thursday
night, said the safety gate ordinance was one of the first ordinances
he signed, and while the railroads had demurred and delayed
matters as much as possible they were slowly but surely coming to
time, and that the gates would be up within a comparatively
short time. The mayor, in conversation with a Daily Messenger
reporter, said:

"The material for the gates is now on the ground and I do

* Reprinted from the Homestead Daily Messenger.

233

homestead: the households of a mill town

not think the railroad companies will delay work much longer.
When we first passed the ordinance the railroad people declared
they would ignore it altogether, but later on they came around and
wanted to compromise. They declared it was unfair to make
them put gates up at every crossing and wanted to compromise by
agreeing to put gates at the principal crossings but we stood pat
and it now looks as if we would win out."

When asked if he thought Homestead could compel the
railroad companies to put up gates by legislation, he said he did,
and added further, that we would never get safety gates unless
the borough officials forced the companies to construct them.

The record of the railroads, in killed and injured, as com-
piled by the Board of Trade, from January i, 1905, to the present
date, is as follows:

1905

Killed 12

Injured 13

Horses killed 6

Wagons demolished 3

1906

Killed 6

Injured 10

Horses killed 3

Wagons demolished 1

1907

Killed 5

Injured 2

Horses killed 4

P. V. & C, 1905 — Persons killed, 8; injured, 9; horses and mules killed, 5.

P. & L. E., 1905 — Persons killed, 3; injured, 2; horses killed, 1.

P. V. & C, 1906 — Persons killed, 3; injured, 2.

P. & L. E., 1906 — Persons killed, 4; injured, 2.

Date and name of those killed and injured. Also news-
paper reports of narrow escapes:

1905 .
John Stahl, Jan. 30, 1905, P. V. & C, injured.
Empire Laundry wagon, Feb. 1, 1905, P. V. & C, two mules killed.

Jos. Peters (Slav), Feb. 7, 1905, P. V. & C, Gold alley, killed,
os. Dobrosky, Feb. 7, 1905, Gold alley, P. V. & C., injured.
'. J. Crawford, Mar. 7, 1905, P. V. & C.

John J. Hughes, May 2, 1905, Union, killed,
waiter Hignt, May 4, 190^, P. V. & C., not seriously.
Cleveland Prov. Co. of Pittsburgh, May 8, 1905, P.

V. & C, horse killed,
drive- escaped

Lawrence Johnston, May 29, 1905, P. V. & C, Munhall, seriously injured.
M. Bellot (Hun.), June 12, 1905, P. V. & C, Amity street, killed.
Willie Schuette, July 3, 1905, P. & L. E., West Homestead, killed.

234

APPENDIX VI

John Uhrin, sr., July 12, 1905, P. V. & C, City Farm Lane, killed.
Frank Kovaic, Aug. 3, 1905, P. & L. E., killed.

Mrs. B. McDonough, Aug. 10, 1905, P. & L. E., City Farm Lane, killed.
Jacob Bernstein, Aug. 14, 1905, P. V. & C, Heisel street, seriously injured,
horse killed, wagon demolished.

Samuel Walker, Aug. 24, 1905, P. V. & C, McClure street, hurt, horse killed.
Jos. Sinclair, Sept. 5, 1905, P. & L. E., West street, injured, wagon struck.
Eugene Freidman, Sept. 10, 1905, P. V. & C, Ann street, killed.
George Verdo, Sept. 14, 1905, P. & L. E., Heisel street, seriously injured.

iohn Zahornaski, Sept. 16, 1905, P. V. & C, Fifth avenue, killed,
like Metro, Sept. 23, 1905, P. V. & C, Heisel street, struck, injured.
H. F. Botsford & Bro., Oct. 28, 190s, P. & L .E., Amity street, horse killed.
Peter Kilosky, Nov. 1, 1905, P. V. & C, Dickson street, injured, wagon
demolished.

Henry Elicker, Nov. 21, 1905, P. V. & C, Amity street, arm cut off.
Jacob Rushe, Nov. 27, 1905, P. V. & C, Dickson street, killed.
S. B. White, Dec. 13, 1905, P. V. & C, Munhall, killed.
Michael Medzyi, Dec. 21, 1905, P. V. & C, McClure street, killed.

1906

Mary Sipas, Jan. 9, P. V. & C, Dickson street, leg cut off.

Three young girls, Feb. 13, P. V. & C, Amity street, narrow escape.

Thomas Roach, Mar. 31, P. & L. E., Heisel street, fatally injured. Three
companions had narrow escape.

Trolley car, Apr. 12, P. & L. E., Amity street, fender taken off.

Three valuable dogs, Apr. 25, P. V. & C, Amity street, killed.

Loaded street car, Apr. 27, P. & L. E., Amity street, narrow escape.

John Milache, May 10, P. &. L. E., West Homestead, seriously hurt.

Street car, May 14, P. & L. E., Amity street, struck.

Frank McCarley, June 13, dragged from McClure to Howard works, P. &
L. E., seriously hurt.

Street car, July 16, P. & L. E., Amity street, Motorman H. C. Smith and
G. H. Hall, conductor, seriously injured; three passengers cut and bruised.

Joseph Sogat, July 21, P. & L. E., Heisel street, killed instantly, horse killed,
wagon wrecked.

W. H. Gould's team, July 24, P. & L. E., Amity street, killed.

Street car, July 30, P. V. & C, Amity street, narrow escape. Two passengers
injured in jumping from car.

Thomas Saunders, July 31, P. V. &C, Hays street, killed.

Bernard Smith, July 31, P. V. & C, killed.

Bolo Kovachy, Aug. 6, P. & L. E., Dickson street, killed.

Repair trolley car, Aug. 16, P. & L. E., Amity street, narrow escape.

John Warko, Aug. 15, P. V. & C, Heisel street, pulled from tracks in time.

1907

John Such, killed at the McClure street crossing of the P. V. & C, Tuesday
evening, January 1 1.

Robert E. O'Connor, killed on Sixth avenue, Thursday, Jan. 10, P. V. & C.

Sunday, Feb. 24, Penn & Shady car struck by fast train at Amity street, 25
lives endangered.

Monday, Feb. 25, Patrick O'Mara killed at Ammon street crossing, P. V. & C.

Tuesday, July 9, John Dryer had one horse killed and another injured
at Heisel street crossing, P. V. & C.

Stephen Sweeney and Al. Woodside, killed Sept. 21, at West street. Two
horses killed.

Max Rosen, lost leg at Amity street crossing, Sept. 31.

Clyde Graham, aged 4 years, struck by train. Badly injured.

235

APPENDIX VIII
SEVEN-DAY LABOR

ORDERS ISSUED BY UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION OFFICIALS
RELATIVE TO SUNDAY LABOR
Resolution with regard to Sunday labor passed by the Finance Committee
of the United States Steel Corporation at a meeting held on April 23, 1907:

On motion, it was voted to recommend to all subsidiary companies that
Sunday labor be reduced to the minimum; that all work (excepting such repair
work as cannot be done while operating) be suspended on Sunday at all steel works,
rolling mills, shops, quarries and docks; that there shall be no construction work,
loading or unloading of materials.

It is understood that it is not at present practicable to apply the recom-
mendation to all Departments, notably the Blast Furnaces, but it is desirable
that the spirit of the recommendation be observed to the fullest extent within
reason.

Copy of telegram sent to presidents of constituent companies of United
States Steel Corporation by Chairman Gary, March 21, 1910:

Mr. Corey, Mr. Dickson and I have lately given much serious thought to
the subject-matter of resolution passed by Finance Committee April 23rd, 1907.
concerning Sunday or Seventh Day Labor. Mr. Corey has written you on the
subject within a day or two. The object of this telegram is to say that all of us
expect and insist that hereafter the spirit of the resolution will be observed and
carried into effect. There should and must be no unnecessary deviation without
first taking up the question with our Finance Committee and asking for a change of
the views of the Committee which proabbly will not under any circumstances be
secured. I emphasize the fact that there should be at least twenty-four continu-
ous hours interval during each week in the production of ingots.

E. H. Gary.

236

APPENDIX IX
COST OF LIVING IN PITTSBURGH

A Report of the Committee on Trade and Commerce to the Chamber of

Commerce of Pittsburgh on the Comparative Cost of Food

and House Rent in Pittsburgh and Other Cities

November 18, 1909

4 T a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce on May 13th,

/\ 1909, your Committee on Trade and Commerce was in-

1 \ structed to consider the matter of cost of living in the

city of Pittsburgh in comparison with other cities similarly located.

Your committee took up the subject assigned to it and had an
investigation made, but owing to the adjournment for the summer
season occurring immediately upon this matter being placed in the
hands of the committee, and the fact that several members of the
committee were absent from the first fall session, we were unable
to have our report prepared until this time.

In accordance with the instructions, your committee had a
list prepared of standard essentials in food stuffs and a representa-
tive of the Chamber of Commerce was sent about our city to obtain
the retail prices for these articles of food in various districts.
Taking the Diamond Market as a center, visits were made in dis-
tricts diverging in all directions from the established center. It
was found that there was a great variation in the prices of these
commodities without regard to location and in most cases without
any apparent well-founded commercial reason. In some cases
we found the prices prevailing at the Diamond Market higher
than the same articles were sold at some distance away from this
center. It was also observed that in similarly located sections
a different range of prices was given, ranging both higher and
lower. In fact, there does not seem to be anything approaching a
consistent uniformity of prices on food stuffs asked by our mer-

237

homestead: the households of a mill town

chants for the same quality. There was also a tendency in many
cases on the part of the merchant, or his representative, to dicker
with prices in order to make sale.

After having investigated the conditions in Pittsburgh, a
representative of the Chamber visited the cities of Buffalo, Cleve-
land and Cincinnati, and we hereto attach a copy of the items on
which prices were asked with the average price in these cities.

A calculation has been made of the cost at which a family
of five persons could be subsisted for a week in any one of the cities
under consideration, using a liberal quantity of all the articles of
food considered, which is as follows :

Cincinnati $10.33

Buffalo 10.90

Pittsburgh 1 1 .88

Cleveland 11.81

While this gives a reasonable comparison of cost, it is not
probable that any family of five would use the quantities and the
same varieties as used in this estimate; the probabilities are that
in actual use in each case it would show a less aggregate cost.

Consideration was given to the matter of house rents in the
cities named. It is apparent from investigation made that the
rents in the city of Pittsburgh and the city of Cincinnati are about
the same for like accommodations, while in Buffalo and Cleveland
the rents would range slightly less. There are some physical con-
ditions that account for this — the topography of Pittsburgh is very
irregular and the many heavy grades with rock formation to
contend with make the cost of construction of buildings necessarily
higher than in cities located as are Cleveland and Buffalo on almost
level territory. Furthermore, in Cleveland and Buffalo the ma-
jority of the houses are constructed of wood, while in Pittsburgh a
great many of our houses are constructed of more substantial
material and necessarily more costly, but more durable and
should cost less to maintain. The increased earning capacity of
the wage-worker of the Pittsburgh district materially overcomes
any such difference that may appear.

A very important factor to be considered in this comparison
is the earning power of our people. The national government

238

APPENDIX IX

report of wages earned in Pittsburgh is $574 per annum, in Buffalo
$508, Cleveland $522, and Cincinnati $466. Therefore, the aver-
age wages earned in Pittsburgh are $52 higher than the highest
and $108 higher than the lowest of the cities referred to, which
makes a liberal offset on any increase that may appear in the cost
of rents.

The cost of provisions in Pittsburgh, as compared with other
cities, is so trifling that it is hardly worth considering. In fact, it
is apparent to your committee, from the information obtained,
that a prudent and careful buyer of the necessities will be able to
purchase what is desired on an average, at Pittsburgh, as low as at
any of the cities taken in comparison, and the greater earning
capacity of our wage-earners makes living in Pittsburgh fully as
advantageous as in any of the cities considered, if not superior.
This investigation has brought to the knowledge of your committee
that the average buyer of food stuffs in Pittsburgh, especially
meats, demands a higher standard of quality than in many other
locations, which of course has a tendency to increase the cost of
living. It might be noted that many of the plainer but substantial
articles of food are offered in Pittsburgh at prices equally as low
as in any of the places referred to, articles such as Ham, Dried
Salt Pork, Pickled Pork, Boiling Beef, Cabbage, Onions, Potatoes,
Molasses, Sugar, Dairy Butter, Coffee, and some other items.

Your committee is of the opinion that the matter of our
public markets, in which the sale of perishable food stuffs is con-
ducted, should have early attention, and better facilities should be
provided to offer such goods to buyers than now exist, both as to
improvement of the market buildings we now have, and the estab-
lishing of others in suitable locations, so that buyers would have an
opportunity of comparison as to quality and prices offered. There
is a tendency on the part of the many dealers in these commodities
to vary the price on a certain commodity in order to encourage a
hesitating buyer, which leads your committee to believe that the
less aggressive buyer pays the excessive prices. City ordinances
should provide that where food stuffs are offered for sale, especially
in market buildings provided by the city, plain figure prices should
be displayed thereon, and if a lower price is accepted on any article,
that would become the selling price and be so displayed.

239

homestead: the households of a mill town

Your committee is of the opinion that the frequently made
allegations that articles of food stuffs are much higher in Pitts-
burgh than many other cities are not well-founded. When taken
as a whole, it is doubtless true that certain articles at particular
times may be purchased in other cities at lower figures than we
are accustomed to buying them in Pittsburgh, but as has been
indicated in this report, if buyers will be more careful to inves-
tigate the quality and to demand fair prices, we feel that our
merchants handling these goods are in position to furnish like
goods at as low prices as in similarly located communities in
this country.

Referring to the matter of fruits and vegetables, we labor
under some slight disadvantages in the Pittsburgh District.
Adjacent to the cities we are using for comparison and many other
of the great cities of our country, are territories that produce fruit
and vegetables in large quantities on account of being specially
adapted to the growing of such articles. From the fact that the
hills and valleys surrounding Pittsburgh have been so bountifully
supplied with valuable minerals, oil and gas, the production of
these commodities is more profitable to the owners and has driven
out agricultural pursuits. This, to some extent, puts us far away
from the growing territory, but with all this, the up-to-date facili-
ties for transporting these commodities materially offset the advan-
tages of the close-to-city grown products. There is a lack of
interest on the part of many of our wage-earners, as compared with
those of other localities and countries, in utilizing small garden
plots for the raising of vegetables on their own account. This may
appear to be a small matter and not worthy of consideration, but
investigation will show, not only in this country, but in many
foreign countries, that great results have been obtained for the
workers of a small garden plot, the labor being furnished at prac-
tically no cost, being done in leisure hours and producing profitable
returns for the labor. The work should be encouraged by our
employers and land owners and such gardens should receive ample
police protection. Encouragement should be given to the work-
ingman to have his own garden plot on which he would doubtless
be able to raise all the vegetables required for his family during the
growing seasons of this section. This would not only be a saving,

240

APPENDIX IX

SCHEDULE SHOWING QUANTITY OF FOOD ESTIMATED FOR SUB-
SISTENCE OF FAMILY OF FIVE PERSONS FOR ONE WEEK

Average price per unit obtained from six different inquiries during July, 1909,
in each of the cities compared.

Pittsburgh

Buffalo

Cleveland

Cincinnati

Av.

^y.

Av.

Article

Quan-

price

Total

price

To/a/

price

Total

price

To/a/

tity

per

cost

per

cow

per

cost

per

cost

unit

Cod Fish

lb.

>3i

■3i

16*

Mackerel

lb.

12*

Poultry

lb.

20J

Bacon .

lb.

18*

554

18I

555

Tenderloin .

lb.

1.50

I9j

118*

235

'43

'7f

'05!

Boiling Beef

lb.

395

10!

4o£

37?

Mutton

lb.

>7*

•3*

54f

Pork, pickled

lb.

'1*

61*

58|

'55

62*

Ham .

lb.

112

1 12

■6f

Bread .

lb.

45t

Flour .

lb.

3 If

Lard .

lb.

'5 A

15A

»5

iS|

'6*

Molasses, 1 Qt. .

lb.

Oat Meal .

lb.

Butter, Creamery

lb.

3*i

3of

61*

32$

^4 |

3'5

63*

Butter, Oleo. .

lb.

18*

Eggs . . .

lb.

3°

Cheese, Cream .

lb.

'9?

9ft

■9*

20$

'Of

l«

Beans, Qt. .

lb.

Prunes

lb.

Rice .

lb.

08J

Potatoes

lb.

■H

Cabbage

lb.

»5

■7f

Onions, \ Pk.

lb.

»o45

'0*

Lettuce, 6 hds. .

lb.

>5*

°5

Carrots, 2 bun. .

lb.

°3

02$

Tomatoes, 2 Qt.

Radishes, 2 bun.

lb.

02f

Beets, 2 bun.

lb.

°3

02$

ol*

Cucumbers, two

°3

Coffee .

i8f

55l

'71

511

16J

49l

Sugar .

29I

27*

055

27*

Milk, 7 Qts.

'7*

o6f

46§

Tea

56*

22*

25*

Vinegar, \ Gal. .

2«!

11.88

IO.9O

11.81

IO.33

241

homestead: the households of a mill town

but would furnish fresher and better qualities than are ordinarily
obtained under the present system by which he is supplied.

Committee on Trade and Commerce

(Signed) ALBERT J. LOGAN, Chairman,

E. A. KITZMILLER, Vice-Chairman.

ROBT. GARLAND,

WM. CAMPBELL,

MARCUS RAUH,

W. A. ROBERTS,

W. L. HIRSCH.

242

APPENDIX X

RATINGS ON MEN EMPLOYED IN IRON AND STEEL
INDUSTRY, BY PRUDENTIAL INSURANCE COM-
PANY OF AMERICA

[Excerpts from Current Rate Book]

28. Ratings on Account 0} Occupation have been divided into three general
classes, and a separate set of premium rates is provided for each class.

The special rating provides for that class whose occupation makes it neces-
sary to charge a slightly higher rate than the regular ordinary rate.

The intermediate rating is the regular Intermediate rate on pages 95 to 97,
and covers that class where the occupation is attended by some hazard.

The hazardous rating is higher than the Intermediate rate, and covers all
the extra hazardous risks. Age 55 nearest birthday is the highest age for which
these rates are quoted.

The special and hazardous tables are found on pages 148 and 149.

Applications for $500 where the occupation is rated will be issued only at
Intermediate rates. Applicants belonging in the hazardous class must apply for
$1,000 or more.

Where the rating is " Intermediate only," $500 policies, or multiples thereof
up to $1 ,500, will only be issued.

The regular rate charged to all applicants at any given age is the basis, to
which an addition is made of an average of $3.20 per $1 ,000 of insurance for Special
rating, $6.39 for Intermediate, and $13.23 for Hazardous rating, in the case of whole
life policies. By reference to the following illustration you will be able to determine
what the charge would be for any group at the ages stated:

W hole Life Policy — $ 1 ,000 Insurance

Age

Regular
Rate

Special
Rale

Intermediate
Rate

Hazardous
Rate

20
30
40
50

$14.96

19.08

26.09

. 38.83

$16.24
21.34
29.90
4479

$17.52
23.60
3370
5074

$25.36
31.63
40.10
54-50

Iron and Steel Industry.

Superintendents and Foremen in all departments not exposed to extreme
heat — No rating.

Blast Furnace Employes — Hazardous.

Puddlers and Cupola Tenders — Hazardous.

Heaters and Melters — Intermediate.

Rollers and Roll Tenders not exposed to considerable heat — Special.

Bessemer Converting Department, except Blowers — Hazardous.

Blowers, Bessemer Department — Special.

Open Hearth Furnaces — Hazardous.

Charging Machine Operators — Intermediate.

Crucible Steel Manufacture — Hazardous.

243

homestead: the households of a mill town

Tube Mill Employes — Intermediate.

Crane and Hoist Men, outdoor — Special.

Crane and Hoist Men, indoor — Intermediate.

Gas Producers — Intermediate.

Ladle Men — Intermediate.

Lever Men, not exposed to heat — Special.

Lever Men, exposed to considerable heat — Intermediate.

Shear Men, not exposed to heat — Special.

Shear Men, exposed to considerable heat — Intermediate.

Molders, pit and floor — Intermediate.

Molders, bench — No rating.

All other employees exposed to considerable heat — Hazardous.

All other employees exposed to moderate heat — Intermediate.

All other employees not exposed to heat — Special.

244

APPENDIX XI

CARNEGIE RELIEF FUND

Extract from Letter of Mr. Andrew Carnegie Relative to Relief Fund.

New York, N. Y., March 12, 1901.
To the President and Board of Directors,

The Carnegie Company,

Pittsburgh, Pa.

Gentlemen: — Mr. Robert A. Franks, my cashier, will hand over to you,
upon your acceptance of the trust, Four Million Dollars ($4,000,000) of The Car-
negie Company bonds, in trust for the following purposes:

The income of the Four Million Dollars ($4,000,000) is to be applied:

1 st. To provide for employees of The Carnegie Company, in all its works,
mines, railways, shops, etc., injured in its service, and for those dependent upon such
employees as are killed.

2nd. To provide small pensions or aids to such employees as after long and
creditable service, through exceptional circumstances, need such help in theirold
age, and who make a good use of it.

3rd. This fund is not intended to be used as a substitute for what the Com-
pany has been in the habit of doing in such cases — far from it — it is intended to go
still further and give to the injured or their families, or to employees who are needy
in old age, through no fault of their own, some provision against want as long as
needed, or until young children can become self-supporting.

4th. A report is to be made at the end of each year, giving an account of the
fund and its distribution, and published in two papers in Pittsburgh, and copies
posted freely at the several works, that every employee may know what is being
done. Publicity in this matter will, I am sure, have a beneficial effect.

5th. 1 make this first use of surplus wealth upon retiring from business as
an acknowledgement of the deep debt which I owe to the workmen who have con-
tributed so greatly to my success.

(Signed) ANDREW CARNEGIE.

Note. — On April ist, 1903, The Carnegie Company was succeeded by Car-
negie Steel Company.

ACCEPTANCE OF TRUST

Extract from minutes of meeting of the Board of Directors of The Carnegie
Company held at the offices of this Company, Pittsburgh, Pa., on March 20th, 1901.

"Whereas, Mr. Andrew Carnegie has generously offered to this Company
Four Million Dollars ($4,000,000) in bonds of The Carnegie Company, to be held in
trust and the income therefrom applied to the purposes set forth in his letter of
March 12th, 1901, provided this Company accept the trust; therefore.

245

homestead: the households of a mill town

"Resolved, That the Board of Directors of The Carnegie Company hereby
accepts the trust, so tendered by Mr. Carnegie, and agrees to hold said bonds in
trust, and to apply the income therefrom to the purposes and in accordance with the
terms and conditions set forth in his letter of March 12th, 1901 :

"Resolved, Further, That the Secretary is directed to communicate this ac-
tion of the Board to Mr. Carnegie, accompanied with a copy of these resolutions,
expressing our deep appreciation for his munificent gift for the welfare of the em-
ployees of this Company, and reciprocating the kindly expressions of his personal
interest in those with whom he has been so long associated, though no words can
adequately express our feelings of love, loyalty, admiration, and inspiration, which
have been so much a part of our service for him."

GENERAL NOTICE

Mr. Andrew Carnegie having munificently tendered to the Board of Direc-
tors of The Carnegie Company, Four Million Dollars ($4,000,000), the income there-
from to be applied, as set forth in his letter of March 12th, 1901, in the establish-
ment of a Relief Fund, and the trust having been accepted by the said Board of
Directors, as recited in the foregoing paragraphs, the "Andrew Carnegie Relief
Fund" was created for the purpose of carrying out the intent of Mr. Carnegie's
benefaction, and became effective January 1st, 1902.

On January 1st, 1905, the name of the Fund was changed to Carnegie Relief
Fund.

Employees of Carnegie Steel Company and its constituent Companies, as
given below, will participate in this Fund in accordance with the prescribed Regula-
tions:

Carnegie Steel Company.

Carnegie Natural Gas Company.

Pittsburgh Limestone Company, Limited.

H. C. Frick Coke Company.

Oliver Iron Mining Company.

Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad Company.

Union Railroad Company.

Pittsburgh Steamship Company.

Pittsburgh & Conneaut Dock Company.

Union Supply Company.

Mingo Coal Company.

National Mining Company.

NOTICE

On May 14th, 1906, (after the printing of this edition of the Regulations), a
body known as the " Board of Trustees of Carnegie Relief and Library Fund," ap-
pointed by the Court of Common Pleas, No. 2, of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania,
succeeded the Board of Directors of Carnegie Steel Company as trustees of the
Carnegie Relief Fund. The Board of Trustees of Carnegie Relief and Library
Fund adopted, by resolution, the Regulations governing the Carnegie Relief Fund
as they had been adopted by the Board of Directors of Carnegie Steel Company
and as they appear in the following pages, and appointed the same persons to be
members of the Advisory Board as named on the opposite page.

Wherever in these Regulations, therefore, the terms "President of Carnegie
Steel Company" and "Board of Directors of Carnegie Steel Company" appear,
they will be understood to mean " President of Board of Trustees of Carnegie Relief
ana Library Fund " and " Board of Trustees of Carnegie Relief and Library Fund,'
respectively.

246

APPENDIX XI

DATA AS TO BENEFICIARIES OF CARNEGIE RELIEF FUND AMONG
EMPLOYEES OF HOMESTEAD WORKS

(a) Total payments on account of the deaths of em-

ployees of Homestead Works from January i, 1902,

to December 31, 1909, inclusive .... I74.230.00

Total death benefit payments to beneficiaries residing

in Europe, and in the United States in places other

than Homestead 24,700.00

Total death benefit payments to beneficiaries residing

in Homestead I49.530.00

(b) Total death benefit payments in 1907 paid to account

of Homestead Works 111,398.00

Total death benefit payments in 1907 to beneficiaries

residing outside of Homestead .... 5,000.00

Total death benefit payments to beneficiaries residing

in Homestead f6.398.00

reported in 1907 3

(i) Accident benefits paid to account of 3 cases reported

in 1907 $623.00

(e) Number of families in Homestead to whom Accident -

Benefits were paid in 1907 6 amount $2,218.95

Number of families outside Homestead to whom Acci-
dent Benefits were paid in 1907 1 " 365.00

I2.583.95

Number of families in Homestead to whom Death

Benefits were paid in 1907 30 " $6,398.00

Number of families outside Homestead to whom

Death Benefits were paid in 1907 8 " 5,000.00

$11,398.00

Number of families in Homestead to whom Pension

Allowances were paid in 1907 .... 21 " $2,286.10

Number of families outside Homestead to whom Pen-
sion Allowances were paid in 1907 . . .15 " 2,470.10

Total Accident Benefits paid to account of

Homestead Works .... $79,759.91

Total Death Benefits paid to account of

Homestead Works .... 74,230.00

Total Pension Allowances paid to account

of Homestead Works . . . 30,540.75

$184,530.66
247

$4,756.20

homestead: the households of a mill town

PENSIONERS,

CARNEGIE RELIEF FUND, HOMESTEAD, 1907

Case
Num-
ber

Wor**

Last
Occupation

Age
Retir
men

3/ /-«M^

Average
Earnings

Monthly
Allow-
ance

Homestead Works

Janitor

75 ye.

irs 23 ye

irs $40.50

$9.30

Laborer

64 '

•5 '

37-75

5.65

I2 '

37-30

7.10

•*

60 *

54.60
66.43

10.90

Sta. Engr.

60 '

23 '

.5.25

Laborer

18 '

46.28

8-35

61 '

18 *

40.80

7-35

69 *

' 21 '

38.35

8.05

69 '

20 '

38.07

7.60

63 '

24 '

' 62.69

15.05

Clerk

18 '

73.60

13.25

1st Pitman

51 '

21 '

70.22

M-75

Heater

61 *

71.86

12.20

Blacksmith

52 '

' 21 '

81.72

17.15

•5

Toolman

■7

71.00

12.00

Laborer

21 '

34.58

7-25

:§

66 '

26 '

60.50

66 '

' 22 '

40.00

8.80

21 '

41.08

8.65

$5 '

36.42

9.85

Duquesne Works

Blacksmith

61 '

25 '

72.07

18.00

248

APPENDIX XII

ACCIDENT RELIEF PLAN OF THE UNITED STATES

STEEL CORPORATION*

MAY 1, 1910

THE United States Steel Corporation has announced a plan
for relief of men injured and the families of men killed in
work accidents. The plan is a distinct advance over any
existing system of relief carried out under any of the constituent
companies; it puts all the employes of the biggest payroll in
America — 225,000 men — on the same footing, and it establishes
a system which can be adjusted to the new legislation that will
probably be enacted in the next ten years in the different states
in which the corporation operates.

In more ways than one, then, the new plan, which will go
into effect May 1 for an experimental year, is a step in advance.
The exact provisions are published below. While some of them
do not measure up to the proposals made by the various state
commissions which have been considering the subject, many of
them are a radical departure from contemporary practice, and as
a voluntary act show both foresight and liberality. The plan
disregards the idea of negligence entirely and may be said to recog-
nize that a share of the income loss due to work-accidents should
be a charge on the industry; it covers hazardous and non-danger-
ous employments alike; it puts the entire cost of the plan on
the business without any contribution whatsoever from the men.
No relief will be paid if suit is brought. It naturally requires a
release from legal liability upon payment of the relief, but it avoids
the involved and questionable relationships created by such relief
associations as, for instance, the Pennsylvania Railroad Relief
Department, to which, like a mutual insurance association, the

* Reprinted from The Survey, April 23, 1910.
249

homestead: the households of a mill town

employes pay dues, and from which they can receive no benefits
from their dues until they sign a paper releasing the company from
any legal liability.

The Steel Corporation makes a point in its announcement
that the payments it proposes are "for relief and not as compensa-
tion." "There can be no real compensation for permanent in-
juries, and the notion of compensation is necessarily based on
legal liability, which is entirely disregarded in this plan as all men
are to receive the relief, even though there be no legal liability to
pay them anything. . . ." In line with this position, there
are no death benefits for single men and extremely low disability
benefits for them. Large numbers of immigrant laborers fall in
this class. Moreover, in death cases the wording of paragraph 24
specifies that relief will be granted "married men living with their
families." This would exclude the non-resident families of aliens
unless the manager of the relief sees fit to exercise his discretionary
power in their favor. But it is understood that wide latitude has
been left the company managers in cases where single men have
old people or others demonstrably dependent upon them. The
death benefit for a married man is eighteen months' wages, and
this is increased ten per cent for every child under sixteen; an
adjustment of relief to need which is noteworthy. The plan in-
cludes medical and hospital treatment. It is a statement of a
consistent policy which will give the man who goes to his work in
the morning a fair knowledge as to what will happen in case he
is killed. Much of the ill name of claim departments in all in-
dustries in years past has been due to the incentive to claim agents
to "make a good showing" by keeping down awards. Here
definite standards are set.

The most serious question raised by a first reading of the
prospectus of the plan is as to the sufficiency of the benefits pro-
vided. In comparison with the three years' wages, which is the
death benefit under the English system, and the four years' wages
proposed by the New York State Commission, the Steel Corpora-
tion announces eighteen months' wages for a married man in
case of death. By a sliding scale this is increased with an in-
creased number of children and with length of service in the com-
pany. Yet the family of an employe of ten years' standing with

250

APPENDIX XII

five children would still get but two and one-half years' wages.
If such a man were temporarily disabled, however, he would get
eighty-five per cent of his weekly wages as against the flat rate of
fifty per cent for all disabled men under the New York bill. The
highest injury benefit specified in the Steel Corporation's announce-
ment is for the loss of an arm — eighteen months' wages. The
highest benefit for permanent disability under the proposed New
York state law is half wages for eight years; that under the Eng-
lish law is half wages for life. But here again the discretion of the
company managers enters in, and in the case of loss of both limbs
or other more complete permanent disability, larger amounts
would doubtless be paid. At several important points, therefore,
the plan is flexible and results will be dependent upon the spirit
in which the company managers carry out its provisions. It
would be impossible to forecast these practical workings of the
plan until after it has had at least the year's trial and until detailed
statements are available as to the nature of injuries and actual
benefits paid. The minimum provisions for death in the case of
married men are in themselves higher than were the average bene-
fits paid by any large employer in the steel district the year of the
Pittsburgh Survey.

Nor is it likely that the Steel Corporation will know either the
cost of the new policy or its acceptability to its employes earlier
than after such a probationary year. The Corporation has been
able in the past to settle most cases out of court, yet the new plan
may effect economies in gathering legal evidence, etc. Such a
large plan of relief would scarcely have been attempted were it
not for the energetic measures to lessen accidents which have been
carried out in the plants of the constituent companies during the
last two years. From the managers' standpoint, the plan has
merit in its probable attraction to the men — a considerable point
in keeping intact a non-union working force. From the public
standpoint it is widely significant that the operating corporation,
which has probably the largest accident experience in America
upon which to base its plan, and which has spent a million dollars
a year on accident payments in the past, should adopt a plan which
it describes as "similar in principle to the German and other foreign
laws and to recommendations which have been made by employers'

251

homestead: the households of a mill town

liability commissions in New York and other states since our work
upon this plan was begun (December, 1908)."

The plan was put into operation tentatively by the National
Tube Company last December. A further plan for the payment of
pensions to disabled and superannuated employes is under con-
sideration.

Following is the plan in full:

ACCIDENT RELIEF

1. This plan of relief is a purely voluntary provision made by the company
for the benefit of employes injured and the families of employes killed in the service
of the company and constitutes no contract and confers no right of action. The
entire amount of money required to carry out the plan will be provided by the com-
pany with no contribution whatsoever from the employes.

2. Where the word "manager" appears in this plan of relief it means that
official of the company who has charge of this relief for his company.

3. The decision of the manager of this relief shall be final with respect to all
questions arising under this plan of relief, and he shall have full discretionary power
in paying relief to meet any conditions which may arise and may not be covered by
this statement.

4. The privilege of this relief will take effect as soon as an employe enters the
service of the company, will continue so long as the plan remains in operation dur-
ing such service, and will terminate when he leaves the service.

5. Payment of this relief will be made only for disablement which has been
caused solely by accidents to employes during and in direct and proper connection
with the performance of duties to which the employes are assigned in the service of
the company, or which they are directed to perform by proper authority, or from
accidents which occur in voluntarily protecting the company's property or interests.
Relief will not be paid unless investigation of the causes and circumstances of the
injury show that it was accidentally inflicted and that it renders the employe un-
able to perform his duties in the service of the company or in any other occupation.

6. No relief will be paid for the first ten days of disablement nor for a period
longer than fifty-two weeks.

7. No employe will be entitled to receive relief except for the time during
which the surgeon certifies that he is unable to follow his usual or any other occupa-
tion.

8. Employes will not be entitled to receive disablement relief for any time
for which wages are paid them.

9. The company will provide treatment by surgeons and hospitals of its
selection.

10. The company will furnish artificial limbs and trusses in cases where these
are needed.

11. All men injured in the service of the company must obey the surgeon's
instructions in reporting for examination, using the remedies and following the

252

APPENDIX XII

treatment prescribed, and going to the hospital if directed. No relief will be paid
unless these instructions are obeyed. All employes who are disabled but not con-
fined to the house must report in person at the surgeon's office, from time to time,
as reasonably requested, and must keep any other appointments made by the
surgeon.

12. All employes who wish, while disabled, to go away from their usual
place of residence, must first arrange with their employing officer and with the
surgeon in charge as to the absence and the evidence of continued disablement to
be furnished. Such employes must report as often and in such manner as may be
required of them.

13. No relief will be paid to any employe or his family if suit is brought
against the company. In no case whatsoever will the company deal with an at-
torney or with anyone except the injured man or some member of his family in the
matter of relief to be paid under this plan, because it is part of the plan that the
whole amount paid shall be received by the employe and his family.

14. No relief will be paid for injuries caused or contributed to by the in-
toxication of the employe injured or his use of stimulants or narcotics or his taking
part in any illegal or immoral acts.

15. All employes of the company who accept and receive any of this relief
will be required to sign a release to the company.

TEMPORARY DISABLEMENT

16. Under the terms and conditions stated here, employes shall be entitled
to the following temporary disablement relief (but no relief will be paid for the first
ten days nor for longer than fifty-two weeks, as stated in paragraph six):

Single Men : Single men who have been five years or less in the service of the
company shall receive thirty-five per cent of the daily wages they were receiving
at the time of the accident. Single men of more than five years' service shall re-
ceive an additional two per cent for each year of service over five years. But in
no case shall single men receive more than $1.50 per day.

Married Men: Married men living with their families who have been in the
service of the company five years or less shall receive fifty per cent of the daily wages
they were receiving at the time of the accident. For each additional year of
service above five years two per cent shall be added to the relief. For each child
under sixteen years five per cent shall be added to the relief. But in no case shall
this relief exceed two dollars per day for married men.

PERMANENT DISABLEMENT

17. The amount of relief which will be paid to employes who have sustained
some permanent disablement, such as the loss of an arm or leg, will depend upon
the extent to which such disablement renders it difficult for them to obtain employ-
ment. The kinds of disablement that may occur and the extent to which each
interferes with employment differ so greatly that it is impossible to provide any
adequate schedule of relief which will be paid in all cases of permanent disablement.
The amounts which will be paid in cases not specifically mentioned here must of

253

homestead: the households of a mill town

necessity be left to the discretion of the manager; but it is the intention of the
company that this discretion shall be so exercised in all cases as to afford substantial
relief corresponding as far as possible with the amounts stated below, considering
the special circumstances of each case and the character and extent of the injury.

(a) For the loss of a hand, twelve months' wages.

(b) For the loss of arm, eighteen months' wages.

(d) For the loss of a leg, twelve months' wages.

(e) For the loss of one eye, six months' wages.

DEATH

18. Relief for the families of employes killed in accidents which happen in
the work of the company will be paid only where the death of the employe is shown
to have resulted from an accident (or sunstroke or heat exhaustion) in the work of
the company during and in direct and proper connection with the performance of
duties to which the employe had been assigned in the service of the company or
which he had been directed to perform by proper authority, or from accidents which
occur in voluntarily protecting the company's property or interests.

iq. Death relief will be paid as soon as possible after the required proof of
cause of death is obtained and a satisfactory release given.

20. The company will pay reasonable funeral expenses, not to exceed $100.

21. No relief will be paid for death caused or contributed to by the intoxi-
cation of the employe killed or his use of stimulants or narcotics or his taking part
in any illegal or immoral acts.

22. No relief will be paid to the family of any employe if suit is brought
against the company.

23. In no case will this relief be paid until the receipt by the company of a
satisfactory release properly executed.

24. Under the terms and conditions stated here, the widows and children of
the employes killed in accidents which happen in the work of the company shall be
entitled to the following death relief:

In the case of married men living with their families, who have been in the
service of the company five (5) years or less and leave widows or children under six-
teen (16) years of age, the company will pay relief to an amount equal to eighteen
months' wages of the deceased employe. For each additional year of service above
five years, three per cent shall be added to this relief. For each child under sixteen
(16) years, ten per cent shall be added to this relief.

But in no case shall this death relief exceed three thousand dollars ($3,000.00).

26. This plan of relief will be in operation for only one year from May I,
1910. If the plan meets with success, it is hoped that some similar plan may be
put in operation for succeeding years.

254

APPENDIX XIII
THE CARNEGIE LIBRARY, HOMESTEAD

By W. F. STEVENS, Librarian

THE Carnegie Library of Homestead was founded and en-
dowed by Andrew Carnegie in 1898. The steel mills that
contributed most toward Mr. Carnegie's experience and
success as an iron-master were located at Homestead, Braddock
and Duquesne, Pennsylvania. To show his good will toward the
people who had worked with him during the more aggressive period
of his career as a manufacturer, he conceived the idea of giving
them an institution that would contribute toward the essential
needs of all the people all the time. The composite nature of the
mill town libraries is well outlined in Mr. Carnegie's dedicatory
address as quoted in the following form in the Homestead
Library reports:

THE PURPOSE

The three natures in the make-up of every human being that must be de-
veloped in order that the Divine purpose may be realized, are the mental, moral
and physical. In founding this institution Mr. Carnegie discerned these necessities
and provided a building and funds to accomplish this end.

THE LIBRARY

"The library filled with the most precious legacy the past
can bequeath to the present — a collection of good books."

To educate the people of this community by —
Supplying readable literature to the masses of the people.
Making provision for the student.
Encouraging societies formed for self culture.
Supplementing the work of the public schools.

255

homestead: the households of a mill town

THE CLUB

"How a man spends his time at work may be taken for
granted, but how he spends his hours of recreation is really the
key of his progress in all the virtues."

To provide a place where one may occupy his time —

In systematic physical development.

In amateur athletics.

In healthful games and profitable intercourse.

EDUCATIONAL

"Here you will have your educational classes. In music
you have a great field."

To conduct classes

Where students may be directed in their studies by competent instructors.

MUSIC HALL

" Here you will have your entertainments and meetings for
educational and philanthropic purposes."

To contribute toward the ethical and moral spirit of the community by
providing a meeting place for —

Free musicales and entertainments.
A suitable hall for public gatherings.

"The best return to the giver is to make a proper and steady
use of all which is sought here to place within their reach."

Mr. Carnegie's first library gift was to Braddock, Pennsyl-
vania, in 1889. The library at Duquesne was opened in 1904.
These three libraries were endowed by the founder with one million
dollars, which produces an income of fifty thousand dollars an-
nually. The preference in the distribution of this income is based
upon the age of the respective institutions. The care of this fund
is in the hands of a board of trustees composed of officials of the
Carnegie Steel Company. The disposition of the income is by the
separate boards of directors of the three different libraries. These
boards are selected mostly from the officials and employes in the
mills. The board of directors of the Homestead library is com-
posed of Azor R. Hunt, general superintendent of the Homestead
Steel Works, Allan A. Corey, assistant general superintendent,

256

APPENDIX XIII

Ralph W. Watson, second assistant general superintendent, Isaac
L. Irwin, chief clerk of the Homestead Steel Works, John Bell,
metallurgist, Thomas R. Davies, superintendent of re-heating
furnaces, Rev. John J. Bullion, pastor St. Mary's Roman Catholic
Church, and Rev. Nathan D. Hynson, pastor First Presbyterian
Church.

The old catechetical idea that the chief end of man was to
"glorify God and to enjoy Him forever" is not at variance with
the idea that the purpose of life is to enjoy all that is good and
beautiful. To accomplish this great end we are given intellects
to guide us, bodies to execute the will of the mind, and a moral
nature to guard both. To develop these three functions is the
purpose of educational institutions, religious organizations, the
exercise of daily life, and the directed physical culture of athletic
associations and physical development. The founder of this in-
stitution did not aim to duplicate the work of the organizations
that have this same motive, but to supplement them.

How well our own library has contributed toward the general
good of the community may be seen from these figures relating to
its usefulness for 1909:

In the library the circulation of books was 245,800. This is
equivalent to circulating the total of 37,000 volumes in the library
8.5 times, or 10 books for every man, woman and child in this com-
munity, or 2 1 volumes for every reader. Of this circulation 77,500
was at the adult desk; 51,600 at the juvenile desk; 116,600 in the
schools, 90,000 of which is supplementary reading; the remaining
26,600 at stations located in the schools throughout the township.
The total attendance was 133,700.

The athletic department reports an average membership of
1,170 per month or 3,705 different members for the year. This,
in all probability, places the Homestead Carnegie Library Club in
the lead among organizations of its kind in western Pennsylvania.
The total attendance was 97,750. The gymnasium shows an
attendance of 21,000 by 1,043 members in classes. Basket ball
holds its own with 30 teams with a membership of 270. There are
at least ten teams not belonging to the club, making a total of 40
teams credited to this community. While basket ball seems very
prominent, it is conducted as a secondary exercise. The classes
17 257

homestead: the households of a mill town

that occupy first place are those for men, women, misses, girls,
boys, with special classes for working boys. There are also special
classes in wrestling, fencing and boxing, and many hours each week
are given to individual work. Seventy-three physical examina-
tions were given. The man, girl and boy that shows the best
physical progress is given a valuable prize. Prizes were given in
different branches of athletics amounting in value to over $250.
There were 1,838 games bowled in the alleys. Eight teams con-
tested in the league games.

The natatorium includes a swimming pool with a capacity of
100,000 gallons, 20 bath tubs and 8 showers. Swimming classes
are conducted for boys, girls and women. Out of a membership
of 864 boys, fully 700 have been taught to swim. If the old adage
that "cleanlinesss is next to godliness" be true, then it must be
admitted that the natatorium does a righteous business. The
total number of baths was 69, 570. This is 1 9 baths for each mem-
ber for the year or one bath every three weeks; so there is still
room for improvement. In the billiard and pool room 60,000 games
were played at no extra expense to the members.

The music hall was used more than ever before in a single
year, the total attendance being 31,600. The several musical
organizations give free concerts from time to time. We are taught
to believe that Heaven is full of music; then, who can estimate the
good coming from these numerous concerts that have lifted many
for the time being above the cares and sorrows of this mundane
sphere.

Besides the concerts by the several musical organizations,
the library organist gives free recitals that are well attended.
The music hall is used also for the high school commencements
and plays, memorials, minstrel shows by local organizations,
dramas, and lecture course. A course of lectures was given after
the manner of the university extension lectures by professors from
the Carnegie Technical Schools. There were thirteen lectures
with an attendance of 900. The use of the hall is granted free to
all religious, patriotic, literary and musical events at which no
admission is charged. Other affairs pay a nominal rate of $15 to
I25, including the use of the organ, piano and the services of the
ushers.

258

Balcony and Entrance, Carnegie Library, Homestead

APPENDIX XIII

The value of the library in meeting the needs of the people is
no better shown than in the educational department.

Knowledge is of two kinds, the kind you know and the kind
you know where to find. The teacher's duty is to lead the scholar
in search of the former, and the librarian's office to conduct the
reader in search of the latter. The ultimate aim is the same;
hence the work of the teacher and librarian go hand in hand. If it
is proper for the library to furnish books for the people, it is right
that they should be good books. If the library has the right to
control the character of the reading, it has a right to direct the
reader to the desired information which supplements the work of
the teacher. The educational department is but the outgrowth of
this idea. As the work in this instance must necessarily be
limited, it is confined largely to studies of practical use to the
students in their daily work.

In what are designated as scientific and literary classes, dur-
ing this season there were 187 students. The attendance was
2,887. There were in all 55 students enrolled in the mechanical
drawing class. The attendance was 1,136. Eighteen of these
pupils attended 75 per cent of the possible sessions. In the com-
mon branch class, where grammar, arithmetic, spelling and history
were taught, the enrollment was 54 and the attendance 790. In
the higher branch class, where trigonometry, geometry, algebra,
physics, higher arithmetic, and beginning Latin were taught, the
enrollment was 23 and attendance 293. The metallurgy class
consisted of ten lectures by steel works officials. The class for
foreigners had an enrollment of 24, and an attendance of 386.
Twenty-one students were enrolled in the penmanship class, which
had an attendance of 230.

The interest in the musical department is equally gratifying.
The band has a membership of 35 with an attendance for the year
of 1,500. Free concerts were given in the Music Hall with an
attendance of 2, 100. Many more concerts were given in the band
stand in the park in front of the library to audiences of equal size.
The Junior Orchestra has had during the winter an enrollment of
31 and an attendance of 673. This orchestra has given free con-
certs with an attendance of 1,750. The Symphony Orchestra
composed of 25 members did excellent advance work and con-

259

homestead: the households of a mill town

tributed its share toward entertaining the public. The Children's
Chorus with a membership of 125 and an attendance of 1,300 closes
its season with a grand concert. The Mandolin and Guitar Club
with 25 members is credited with its share of success. The Male
Chorus, which is composed of 30 members, is an attraction at home
and has won honors abroad at the national eisteddfods.

The total enrollment in all classes was 388, with an attendance
of 6,437.

The total attendance in the four departments of the library
was 274,300, an average gain of 17.5 per cent.

USE OF THE LIBRARY BY FOREIGNERS

Homestead has a population of 25,000, forty per cent of
which may be classified as foreign. The foreigners are attracted
to this community by the Homestead steel works, which employ
10,000 men, one-half of whom are foreign born. The Carnegie
Library aims to benefit this population, intellectually, physically,
and morally. For this purpose the privileges of library, night
school, athletic club, and music hall are granted to all classes of
people alike; hence, it may be said that no special work is con-
ducted in the interest of the foreigners. This class of citizens is,
however, reached in more ways than one.

In the library a collection of Lithuanian books is provided
for the Lithuanians, the male portion of whom compose a large
part of the laboring class in the mills. This collection was loaned
to a society of the Lithuanian church and was conducted as a
station for some time and with some degree of success.

A collection of books by Catholic authors is very well used.
It is, however, difficult to determine what percentage of the read-
ers might be classed as foreigners. A catalogue of this collection was
distributed in the parochial schools. Other collections in French,
German, and Italian are used freely. The assistant librarian
speaks these languages and is instrumental in creating and main-
taining interest in the books. A station is conducted by a mission
in the "foreign" ward. This collection is composed largely of
well-worn books that are not expected to be returned.

It can hardly be expected that the library will have a marked

260

APPENDIX XIII

influence on the "grown ups" among the foreigners, but the in-
fluence over the children is most gratifying. In certain cases
where the families were visited it was ascertained that the fathers
and mothers listened eagerly to their children as they read aloud
from the library books. This fact is interesting and becomes a
hopeful sign when it is known that these children read mostly
fairy tales, religious books, such as the life of Christ in one syllable,
and United States history. It is safe to say that the reading of
fiction by foreign children is less than the average.

In the night school classes are conducted for the foreigners
where they may learn English and the common branches. The
talent in this class is so varied that most of the instruction has to
be individual. One of the students is forty years of age and when
he began did not know his a b c's. In three months he could
read as well as a second grade pupil in the public schools. By the
side of the forty-year-old pupil sat an orphan boy ten years old
who was adopted by a poor widow. The boy delivered milk
during the day and attended night school two nights each week.
Some of the students come year after year; others drop out in a
few weeks. This is the experience with one-half of the night
school students. Two years ago the class for foreigners was com-
posed almost entirely of Transylvanians. In their own language
they were well educated, and they came to the library for the Eng-
lish only. However contradictory it may seem, our best teachers
for foreigners speak only the English language.

In the public and parochial schools, the library is able to
benefit the foreigners by furnishing supplementary reading. In
the second ward, the primary room may begin the term with fifty
pupils, not half a dozen of whom can speak English. By the time
these pupils are in the second grade they are reading library books
at least two days each week. They are taught that it is a privi-
lege to use the library books. The theory is that the text-book is
of use in teaching the mechanics of reading; that is, in teaching
how to read. The supplementary reading is encouraged because
it is interesting first, and instructive second. It is usually much
easier reading than the text-book; hence, is read without the usual
effort in pronunciation. It frequently happens that a pupil will
tell his brothers or sisters about the library book he is reading in

261

homestead: the households of a mill town

school, and the brother or sister forthwith goes to the library for
the book. When a set of books is ordered for the schools, extra
copies of the same books are ordered for the children's room.
Small libraries of about 25 volumes each are loaned to the princi-
pals in the several wards and 300 to the high school. Small
libraries of 200 volumes each, as well as supplementary reading
sets, are furnished the village and country schools throughout the
township. The books sent to the country schools in the mining
districts are those discarded by the library, and this is their final
mission.

Out of a total circulation of 246,000 last year, 75,000 are
credited to foreign readers, which indicates that about one-third
of the foreigners use the library books. The male foreigners re-
ceive further benefits from the athletic department, where they
pay one dollar for three months for the use of the billiard room,
game room, gymnasium, swimming pool, and bowling alleys.
Out of a membership of 3,700 last year, 1,200 were foreigners,
mostly Slavs. What seems to be a most hopeful indication is
that these men and boys make the most use of the baths. Out of
70,000 baths taken last year, fully 23,000 were taken by foreigners
at a cost of three and one-half cents per bath. The city furnishes
the water — cheerfully.

Out of a total attendance of 32,000 in the Music Hall, at least
5,000 may be credited to the foreigners who come to enjoy the
free organ recitals, band and orchestra concerts, and choruses.
Two of the plays given by local talent were by foreigners. The
children's librarian told stories to the school children to an at-
tendance aggregating 6,000. The library conducted at the chil-
dren's playground has its share of influence upon the foreign
children. Out of a total attendance of 275,000 in all depart-
ments connected with the library, it is probable that 90,000 were
foreigners.

TECHNOLOGICAL USE OF THE HOMESTEAD LIBRARY
The technology department is composed of approximately
3,000 volumes. The use during the past year amounted to 7,500.
The use of periodicals would make this, in all, 10,000. This use-
fulness has been encouraged by the semi-annual bulletin in which

262

APPENDIX XIII

is printed a list of books on special subjects. The mill books come
in for their share of publicity. Quantities of these bulletins are
sent to the numerous offices through the mills as well as to the
general offices.

Several years past an annotated list of "mill books for mill
men" was issued with marked success as to its results. The local
paper prints freely any lists that are furnished by the library.
The most satisfactory selection is made by the readers who come
to the library and select books for themselves. The open shelves
make it convenient for the reader to find a book that is "just as
good" when he fails to find the one he wants.

A well-known author said he did not care what the critics
said about his books, but he did care what the people said to each
other. The same principle is true in the use of technical books.
When Campbell's Iron and Steel was reissued a few years ago it
became necessary for us to add fifteen copies, and that did not
fully satisfy the demand. This occurred not because of any special
effort on the part of the library but because of personal testimony
of the readers themselves.

In the case of employes of the Mesta Machine Company, the
books are taken to the men by conducting a small library of 200
volumes in their reading room. Many of these books are on the
subjects of iron, steel, founding and machinery. This like all
other stations is renewed upon request. The collection at the
C. M. Schwab Industrial School is composed of 200 volumes on
mechanical drawing, carpentry, blacksmithing and domestic
economy, and shows an annual use of nearly 1,000.

Out of 27 study and literary clubs, only one gave all its time
to the study of mill subjects. It was composed of 15 young men
and known as the Iron and Steel Club. The Superintendents'
Club is not classed as a literary club, but it is a fact that most of the
discussions are on iron and steel subjects, which because of their
current nature require a marked amount of periodical reading of a
technical character.

The educational department enrolled last year 388 students,
187 of whom were in scientific classes. During the past five years
there have been not less than 325 men in this department who were
studying technical subjects and reading technical books on such

263

homestead: the households of a mill town

subjects as physics, chemistry, metallurgy and mechanical draw-
ing. During the same period a single correspondence school
claims 900 students in this community. If this be true, there are
in Homestead probably not less than 1 , 500 users of technical books .
This is equal to one-half of the technical employes in the mills.

The athletic department has no doubt the effect of attract-
ing men to the books in the library. The Music Hall with an
attendance of 31,000 likewise brings people to the library. The
extent to which these two departments influence the use of techni-
cal literature is not known.

The close proximity of the libraries in the Monongahela
Valley to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh makes it futile to
build up large collections in technical literature. When the case is
important, the readers in Homestead are almost invariably re-
ferred to this library for literature that is final on the subject.

STUDY AND LITERARY CLUBS

The first club in Homestead was the Woman's Club, which
was organized in 1897. This club includes thirty-five members.
The subjects from year to year have been broad and comprehen-
sive. For the past few years, Shakespeare, Norway and Sweden,
Egypt, Famous Women, together with various modern topics,
have been the objects of discussion. For two years the children's
playground work was conducted and sustained by this club.

The Outlook Club is composed of business and professional
men. The subjects discussed are miscellaneous in their character.
Some of the subjects for the past year were: "Gain as an incentive
to progress," "Everyday psychology," "Justice in taxation,"
"The function of government," "Poe's place in literature," "If
I had a million dollars," "The Panama Canal," "The Jewish
Nation," "Child Labor," "Robert Burns," and "The spirit of
speculation." The Outlook Club, like most of these clubs, is en-
tertained by its members. The lunch is usually composed of three
items, but the topics for this social period are without number.
The membership is limited to 15.

The Thursday Night Study Club was organized in 1902 and
is composed of 25 teachers. In the beginning the membership was

2(>.\

APPENDIX XIII

limited to 15, but the demand for admittance was so great that
the membership was increased to 25. For six successive years this
club has studied Shakespeare. The Prytaneum Club is composed
of the wives of business and professional men. The programs
have included "Italy," "American topics," "Ancient History"
and miscellaneous topics. This club has 1 5 members.

The Principals' Association is composed of the principals of
the several ward schools and the teachers in art, music, domestic
economy, commercial and manual training. The topics used in
this association are, for the most part, literary and pedagogical.
The Teachers' Association is similar in its character. Its mem-
bership consists of the grade teachers and their papers are on
subjects relating to their profession. Speakers of national reputa-
tion are invited to address these two associations when they hold
joint sessions.

The Platonian Literary Society with 70 members is virtually
the Munhall high school. The value of the literary society cannot
be overestimated. The majority of the members in study clubs
were at some time identified with a school literary society. The
Munhall Teachers' Study Club consists of the teachers in the school
of the borough of Munhall. The topics discussed are literary and
pedagogical. The Monongahela Valley Library Association is
composed of the librarians in Braddock, Homestead, Duquesne,
and McKeesport. The programs are mostly professional and
literary. Five out of a membership of 25 live in Homestead.

The Thebian is a literary society conducted at Lincoln
Place, about three miles from Homestead. The Excelsior Class is
a Sunday-school class that devotes certain evenings to literary
work. This plan not only benefits the members intellectually
but helps to solve the problem of retaining the Sunday-school
membership of young people from thirteen to eighteen years of
age. Although the Thebians are in Lincoln Place and the Ex-
celsiors in Munhall, the distance does not prevent them from
locking horns in debate. The West Homestead Teachers' Club
studies the reading designated by the county superintendent.
The programs are interspersed with current event topics. In four
of the Homestead ward schools literary societies are conducted in
the seventh and eighth grades.

265

homestead: the households of a mill town

Two organizations that are closely allied to the study clubs
are the Men's Association of the First Presbyterian Church with
ioo members and the Wesleyan Brotherhood of the First M. E.
Church with 50 members. The literary work of these organiza-
tions is conducted on the lecture plan, and consists of addresses on
historical, literary and religious subjects.

The Homeville Literary Society has a membership of 50.
The Philakalon is the name of the society of young ladies in the
Homestead high school. The membership numbers 15. The
subjects are current topics and self culture. The Lincoln Place
Teachers' Club, with a membership of seven, discusses literary and
pedagogical subjects. The Brilliant Circle of Whitaker is com-
posed of ladies who discuss current topics.

In all there are 22 literary and study clubs with a member-
ship of 787. Not all the clubs that have been organized have
lived. Some ceased because their purpose had been accomplished;
others disbanded "because" — and that is all the reason a woman
needs to give. The Woman's Improvement Club, the Steel Club,
the Gwal, the Chautauqua Circle, the Criterion Club, the Ancient
History Club, the Atheneum Club and the Audubon Society are
in this class.

These literary clubs are unified in the United Literary Clubs
of Homestead and vicinity. This organization was formed in
1902 for the purposes of (1) interchange of experience, (2) obtain-
ing the stimulus derived from the assemblage of a large number of
people having the same purpose, (3) stimulating the ethical and
literary spirit of the community, (4) forming new clubs. The
annual function of this organization has attracted a thousand of
the club members and their friends. The best talent that can be
secured is obtained for these occasions. The first annual meeting
was held in the smallest church in town and now the meetings
must be held in the Carnegie Music Hall.

The Carnegie Library aims to take a helpful interest in the
club spirit of this community. The books that may be of service
to any club with a program made out for the year are placed on a
shelf in "club corner" where they may be consulted or selected
for home use. In the case of the Audubon Society a list of books
and magazine articles was printed for free distribution. The

266

APPENDIX XIII

A YEAR'S USE, COMPARATIVE STATIS

TICS FOR 1908 AND 1909

Departments

1908

1909

Gain

Loss

LIBRARY

Inventory

Accessions ....
Withdrawn ....

33.96i

3753

944

36.942
4,220
1.239

2,081
467
295

Circulation ....

235.247

245,831

10,584

Adult Desk ....
Juvenile Desk

Schools

Stations

77.774
49,575
78,058
29,840

77&2
51,665

90,195

26,459

1,090
«2,I37

262
3.38i

Percentage of Fiction.

Attendance ....

1 3 1 ,869

133,700

1,821

Adult

Juvenile

79,111
52,768

80,500
53,200

1.389
432

Readers

1 1,000

1 1,500

500

Reading Room Use .

93,000

97.500

4.500

EDUCATION— Attendance

Scientific

Musical

5.900
2,895
2,561

7,126
2,887
3-550

1,226
'989

Number Students .

364

388

Study Clubs ....

Membership ....

750

800

THE CLUB

Membership. Av. Monthly .

994

M79

185

Employees ....
Non-Employees

Boys

Girls

Ladies ....
Different Members

262
224

2,732

424

291

285

3.705

50
29
61

44
1

973

Attendance ....

89,042

97754

8,7.2

Gymnasium ....
Gymnasium Members .
Natatorium ....

19,721

95°
55.356

21,013

'.043

69.569

1,292

93
14,213

Bowling Games

2,216

1,832

384

MUSIC HALL

Events

Attendance ....

22
13.370

31,625

12
.8,255

Attendance — Grand Totals

240,390

274,350

33,960

Percentage of Gain

12.4

'7-5

5-'

267

homestead: the households of a mill town

percentage of fiction circulated is 51. Before these clubs were
organized the percentage of fiction was 63.

While figures are considered conclusive, they do not always
tell all the story. The value of the clubs to the individuals, to
society, to the public schools, and to the library would make a
book if it could be written. To accomplish this general good
through organized reading is what the United Literary Clubs
aim to do.

A catechetical conclusion
What points are most essential in comparing the usefulness of
libraries?

1 . Volumes per capita. Because it indicates that the library
has or has not enough books.

2. The percentage of readers per population. Because it
indicates that the library is or is not covering its field.

3. The per capita circulation. Because it indicates that the
readers are or are not making sufficient use of the books.

4. Percentage of fiction read. Because it indicates, in a
measure, the quality of reading done.

5. The cost of circulating each volume. Because it indi-
cates that the funds are or are not being used economically.

How many volumes should our library have?

According to the average of ten well-known libraries one
volume per capita is sufficient. We have 37,000 volumes and
about 30,000 population in that part of Mifflin Township which we
supply with books to a greater or less degree. This is 1 .2 volumes
per capita.

How many readers ought our library have?

If the average is a criterion we should have 7,510 readers or
25 per cent of our population. The fact is we have 1 1,500 readers
or 38 per cent of our population.

How well are these readers using the library?

Each reader draws on an average of 22 volumes. This is 7
more than the average. Out of 22 volumes drawn by each reader
only 51 per cent is fiction. Since the fiction is of the best, it does
not count much against the quality of reading. The average
percentage of fiction read in libraries is 63.

268

APPENDIX XIII

Is it costing us more to get our books read than it does other
cities?

It costs us 5 cents to get a book read. This is 7 cents less
than the average.

How does our club compare with other similar organisations?

By comparing our club with the average of 450 similar or-
ganizations, our operating expenses are $2,400 less; our member-
ship is 459 more; our attendance is the same; we have 215 more
in the gymnasium; and we have 26 more organized teams.

How does our educational work compare with other similar
work?

By comparing the same as in the athletic club, we have
three more teachers, 205 more scholars, and a per capita expense
of $3.00 less.

The Pittsburgh Gazette-Times considers the annual report
of Homestead Carnegie Library of sufficient importance for a very
complimentary editorial notice.

"Special significance attaches to the eleventh annual
report of the Homestead Carnegie library. It is generally
believed that an industrial community must be intellectually
stagnant, and also that a large admixture of foreign element
in the population acts as a drawback upon the so-called
'higher life.' So far as this higher life is made up of bridge
whist and new thought, there may be truth in the general
belief; but, judging by such indices of social and mental
activity as the Homestead library affords, neither the pres-
ence of aliens nor preoccupation with material interests
interferes with the most gratifying progress. In fact, com-
parison with other communities and similar institutions
gives rise to the suspicion that these factors promote instead
of hamper the 'higher life.'

"The Homestead library contains 37,000 volumes and
serves a community of about 30,000. Over 77,000 volumes
were circulated at the adult desk last year among 11,500
readers. The total circulation in all departments was
246,000, an increase of 1 1 ,000 over the previous year. Most
significant of all is the percentage of fiction read, which is
only 51, being 14 per cent lower than the average library.
The report tells of 27 literary and study clubs in the com-
munity with a membership of about 800, while the Carnegie
Library club listed 3,705 members in the course of the year.

269

homestead: the households of a mill town

It should be understood that the Homestead library is
largely institutional, with swimming pools and billiard
tables, brass bands, and evening classes to supplement the
books upon the shelves.

"Librarian Stevens is to be congratulated upon the
excellent showing of his 'plant.' But Homestead is even
more to be congratulated upon the excellent use made of its
opportunities to upset the theory that an industrial com-
munity is necessarily unintellectual and materialistic."

The library management and the good people of Homestead
appreciate the recognition of the advancement the citizens here
are making intellectually and trust the wider circulation of the
fact will have a good influence on "benighted" industrial com-
munities.

270

APPENDIX XIV
SLAVIC ORGANIZATIONS IN HOMESTEAD

Patriotic Statement by a Slav

A CLERKLY Slav, who had lived in Homestead for some
years, put down the following in answer to some ques-
tions about the fraternal organizations of his own people.*
It was his expressed wish to write his answers rather than to
"speak them," saying of them:

Please excuse me, if I have done in this my letter some gram-
matical or linguistical errors. I can work in six languages, but in the
English I am working seldom. I have learnt the English language
mostly from books, and have had very small opportunity to go deeper
into this most beautyfull American language. If I can not write and
speak it as Milton or Shakespeare, You must excuse me. It is some-
time no good, to take from good to much. And this is true with the
knowledge of to much languages. One You are neglecting for the other.
But as You see please, I am not neglecting very much the beautyfull
language of my adopted American country.

His letter, despite its quaint formalism, breathes a spirit
toward America which it would be sheer wantonness to mar by
attempting to edit out his phrases. It is worth printing here for
itself:

There are in Homestead following: — not foreign but decid-
edly American, non-english, indigenous, public organizations of
the Slavic race, respectively of the Slovak nation.

1. National Slovak Society In the United States and Can-
ada, 37,000 members. Slovak organization.

2. Roman Catholic Slovak Union in the United States and
Canada, 36,000 members. Slovak organization.

3. Greek Catholic Union called Sojedinenje, all over the
United States and Canada, 22,000 members. Slovak organization.

4. Greek Catholic Union called Sojur, in the United States
and Canada, 8,000 members. Russian organization.

* For a thoroughly interesting and exhaustive interpretation of organized
social life among the Slavs, and their assimilation in this country, the reader is
referred to Our Slavic Fellow Citizens by Emily Greene Balch, recently issued by
Charities Publication Committee, New York.

271

homestead: the households of a mill town

5. Greek Catholic Union, called Obscestvo, in the United
States and Canada, 5,000 members. Russian organization.

6. Roman and Greek Catholic Union of Pennsylvania, in
the United States and Canada, 8,000 members. Slovak organiza-
tion.

7. Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Union, in the United States
and Canada, 6,000 members. Slovak organization.

How many members have these organizations in the town
of Homestead, Pa., separately, I cannot state, and this statement
if I would or could do it could not be correct, because all these
organizations have in Homestead, 1, 2, 3, 4, branches called
assemblys and from these some have 200-400 members, but
there are such, which have 50-60 members only.

The accounting of the membership of the Assemblys
cannot be made correctly, because the members are migrating
every month from one place to another, from one town to another,
searching for work and occupation. There-fore in the account of
the membership of Assemblys is sometime big difference every
year, every month and every week.

These organizations are paying death benefits from $600.00
to $1,000,000. Accident benefits from $100.00 to $400.00 and
benefits in sickness from $5.00 to $7.00 weekly. Every member
of these organizations does pay monthly dues from 80 cents to
$1.30. These dues are changing in their amount nearly monthly
according to how many expenses are there in the organization,
and how many deaths, accidents and sickness occur. These or-
ganizations are mostly organizations of men, but in some, as in
all the Greek Catholic Unions, are included women too, which are
organized in separate assemblys belonging to their respective
organizations.

The Slavic race has separate women organizations too;
and these, mostly are by the Slovaks, these:

1. Slovak National Women's Union called "Jivena" in the
United States and Canada, with active membership of nearly 8,000.

2. Slovak Roman Catholic Women's Union in the United
States and Canada with active membership of nearly 10,000
women and girls.

3. The Roman and Greek Catholic Women Union of Penn-
sylvania in the United States and Canada a membership of 3,000
women and girls.

"There are Young Men Associations in the United States
and Canada.

1. Roman Catholic Young Mens Association with nearly
4,000 members. This organization is a branch of the big " Roman
Catholic Slovak Union."

272

APPENDIX XIV

2. Greek Catholic Young Men Association with nearly
1,500 members. This organization is a branch of the Greek
Catholic Union called Sojedinenije.

There is the "Gymnastical Slovak Union" called Sokol in
the United States and Canada, with a membership of 5,000 young
men. Independent of any organization.

Besides these American, Slovak Organizations, there are
in Homestead and all over the United States more organizations of
Polish, Russian, Croation, Chech, Servian, Bulgariass, nationality
but regarding these I can state only, that these nationalities of the
Slav race have very strong and rich organizations.

The organization of theLituanian nationality are in number
4 or 5 and these must be reckoned to the Slav race, too, because
the Lituanians are only a branch of the very big Slav race, and
they are one of the Slav nations.

I have there stated the membership of the organizations a
little higher, because I know that until your book will be ready,
the organizations will have nearly the same number of members,
which I state here. This does occur irrevocably, because the
immigration of all these nations to this most glorious our American
Republic, to the United States, is just now enormous and it will
be in a short time more stronger.

The Slav race, and without exception all the Slav nationali-
ties are the most and sincere patriotic people of our great Republic,
the United States, because they have found there all that of which
they have been robbed in their old countries. They have found
in United States personal and common liberty, free and inde-
pendent civilization, wellfare and all that which the aborigines
of the English and other races have there found themselves.
Therefore the Slavic races is the most zealous supporter of all the
state and social institutions. Because this way, the Slavs are
interested in the material and moral development and evolution
of this country, they are supporting every time that political party,
which does seem to them the most honest, moral, and virtuous party.
Because now the Republican party and the whole United States
under the most honest, circumspect and glorious leadership of our
most beloved president Mr. Theodore Roosevelt are enjoying,
just in the latest years, a degree of evolution in every respect,
naturally the Slav are mostly Republicans and are following the
steps which president Roosevelt does designate. Very small
amount of the Slavs is democratic. Socialist are some may be
1000-2000, may be a little more, but not a single Anarchist. The
Anarchists are mostly Russian Jews.

"There are in Homestead and vicinity plenty of English
speaking Slavs, and if you want, you can go to whichever finer

.8 273

homestead: the households of a mill town

Slav or Slovak home and personally ask regarding the cost of
living. But you must have somebody with you from the Slavs or
Slovaks themselves, who is among them good, versatilic and known
as their priminent or honest man or woman. If you have not
done this, you cannot get some information and not the smallest,
because the people are every time secluded and reserved in their
giving of information to one, whom they do not know, who he or
she is.

I can state only that, that this step from you would be of
no use, because our people is living in every respect as the Ameri-
can English people is living, except that the Slavs are liking to eat
dumpies with fine cheese of their country and disregard the eating
of half cooked or baked english beafsteak. The yearly costs of
living are by the Slavs the same as by the English people which is
varying according the degrees of wellfare of the family. From
my experience I state that a family of working people now in the
United States does need yearly $6oo-$8oo for support and from
this can save very very small amount or nothing.

Our people the Slavs are not holding or registering accounts
regarding their income or expenses. This does not do nobody
from the poorer classes in the whole world, except in some very
rich and very popular families. Some European rich Barons,
Counts, and Princes are doing this, but not a single from the poorer
class. If there is one or two cases that is exception only.

The Greek Catholic Union is doing the same, what are
doing the all other Slav or Slovak organizations. This is enlight-
ening the people and members in every respect on the true prin-
cipals of the christian civilization. To develop from the members
the most true, honest, moral, citizens of the United States, and
therefore, the members are compelled to become citizens of the
United States to help each other in the case of death, accidents or
sickness. To support the United States and their christian civil-
ization in every possible regard. To develop their own civilization
by the means of cultivation of their own the English American,
but not English European language? To reach this purpose not
only the Greek Catholic Union, but all the Slav organizations and
all the Slav race have spent millions of dollars to build christian
schools and churches which are standing now in every part of the
United States where there are living the Slavs. There will be
built more.

In Homestead the Greek Catholic Union called Sojedinenije
has two Assemblys, of men with 260 and 130 members, respective
subscribers, and one Assembly of women with 60 members or
subscribers. The official organ is the weekly Amerikansky
Russky Viertnik but I must there make the observation that

274

APPENDIX XIV

because this weekly is the property of the whole organization, the
members are supporting this weekly themselves and for this
purpose are paying monthly 8 cents for the paper into the treasury
of tne organization and for this reason the members of the organi-
zations cannot be considered as subscribers, but as proprietors of
the paper. In the right sense of word they are not subscribers,
but proprietors of the paper. Subscribers we have not very much
but supporters or proprietors of the paper there are as many as
how many members there are in the organization; that is just
now 20,500 in round numbers, but in some three or four months
there will be over 22,000.

Some Observation: The organizations of the Slavic race are
not foreign organizations but indigenous, because the organiza-
tions are chartered by the American, United States authorities,
courts and governmental delegations, and to these organizations
are belonging adopted citizens of United States, mostly, or such
individuals who in short time would be citizens.

Adopted, naturalized citizens of United States is not a for-
eigner, whatever language he does speak. A English speaking
Canadian, or a subject of the European United English Kingdom,
if not naturalized, is more foreigner in the United States, as a
naturalized and only slightly English speaking, Slav or German.

To know to read and write is not a sign of civilization, but
the manner and habits, the moral degree of a individual. One
who is good educated, but is a scoundrel, rascal or wrong doer, is
not a civilized or at least wrongly civilized and educated individual.
One who is good educated and is a human beast, is more dangerous
to the humanity as a Bengal tiger, and for this reason cannot be
called civilized individual.

The national civilization of the Slavs is the same christian
civilization as that of the English race, because the source of both
is the same, Jesus Christ, the distinction exist only in some national
traits and habits.

No one nation does exist which has not some black sheep.
In every nation are fine and good men and women, but in every
nation there are some bad men.

The science of sociology has the commencement in the
marriage then in the family, then in the tribe then does spread in
the nation, then in the race and finally in the whole humanity.

Sociology is a very young science and is very different from
"Cultural History" which is a young science too.

The first cultivator of the true and right science of sociol-
ogy was Jesus Christ, the true fundamental ideas of sociology are
in the Holy Bible.

Every science must be based on christian philosophy, be-

275

homestead: the households of a mill town

cause the most true philosophy are the revelations of God, and
the source of every science is God, because every true wisdom does
come directly from God.

If a science is not in harmony with the laws of morality
and the laws of God and of nature, such science is not science but
fraud and prostitution of reason and human soul.

It is impossible for me to supply you with the data of all
the organizations of the Slavic race, because to get this data, I
would be compelled to work diligently for months and give myself
in connection with every Slav organization and with every As-
sembly, with every president or officer of the organizations and
Assemblys.

If you are sometime writing regarding the Slavs, never do you
forget that the Slavs have been every time and are until today the
most brave and gallant, heroic defenders of the western European
civilization and of all the Western European nations. If there is
not Slav blood, and if there have not been the Slav heroes in
Eastern Europe, the civilization of the Western European Na-
tions, the French, German, English national civilizations would
have been crashed under the hard blows of Tartarism, Mohammed-
anism and Mongolism. The newest example of this truth is the
most eloquent Russo-Japanese war.

APPENDIX XV

POPULATION OF HOMESTEAD AND MUNHALL, 1910

The United States census of 1910 gives Homestead borough
a population of 18,713, as against 12,554 in 1900, and 7911 in
1890. The population of Munhall is given as 5185.

276

INDEX

Accident Relief Plan —

United States Steel Corporation,
95; Appendix XII, 249

Aldermanic Courts —

System of, 28, 29

Allegheny County Medical Society,

i47

Amalgamated Association of Iron
and Steel Workers —

Power of, 8; wage scale fixed by, 6,
7, 8; and the Homestead strike, 7-10

Americanizing Slavs —
Problem of, 167, 168

Amusements, 30, 31; athletic clubs,
116; Carnegie Library clubs, 117;
church, 115, "6; cultural, 117;
fraternal organizations, 113, 114, 115,
163, 164; private, no; private, of
Slavs, 149, 150, 151; public, in, 112;
public, of Slavs, 151; women's clubs,
114, 116. See also Recreation, Expen-
ditures for

Analysis of 90 budget families —
By racial and expenditure group,
(Table) 44; by racial group and nor-
mal weekly wage of man, (Table) 36;
and detailed description of, Appendix
II, 206

Architecture —

Of workingmen's homes, 47

Athletic clubs, 116

Atwater, Prof. —

Food ratios established by, 69, 71

Average expenditure —

For food per man per day of 90
budget families, by racial and ex-
penditure group, (Table) 69; of
Slavic families compared with those
of other races spending more than $15

per week, (Table) 156; of ten Slavic
budget families earning less than $12
per week, (Table) 140; of two groups
of 10 families each, those spending $15
or more per week and those spending
less than $12, with the ratio of in-
crease, (Table) 156. See also general
tables

Average weekly expenditure —

General description and average
weekly expenditure of each of the 90
budget families, Appendix II, 206; of
90 budget families, by chief items of
expenditure and expenditure group,
(Table) 45; of 90 budget families by
chief items of expenditure and racial
group, (Table) 44; of 90 budget fam-
ilies for various items, by expenditure
group, (Table) 84; of 29 Slavic bud-
get families, (Table) 152; of 77 house-
renting families by chief items of ex-
penditure and expenditure group,
(Table) 45

Balch, Emily Greene —

Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, 13

Benefit associations. See Fraternal
organizations

Benefits —

Carnegie Relief, paid 42 widows,
(Table) 95; insurance, 96; paid by
Slavic fraternal organizations, 161,
(Table) 162, 163

Bill of fare-
Typical, 63, 64

Births—

In each ward in Homestead, by
racial group, (Table) 146

Board of Health Report, Homestead,
23, Appendix VI, 222

279

INDEX

Boards of Health —

Pennsylvania act to enable bor-
ough councils to establish, Appendix
V, 218

Boarding-houses —

Slavic, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 143,
144. See also Lodgers

Borough autonomy —
Limitations of, 29

Borough divisions —

Effect of, on taxes, 19, 20, 21, 22,
178; independent, composing Home-
stead, 4, 18, 19, 20, 21, 178

Borough ordinances —

Regulating sanitary conditions, 25;
futility of, in dealing with railroads,
29

Bryce and Highbie Glass Factory, 5

Budget families —

Description (detailed) and average
weekly expenditure of 90, (Tables)
Appendix II, 206; method of select-
ing, 37, Appendix I, 187. See also
general tables

Budget study —

American assistant employed in
making, 37; includes families of
different wage and racial groups, 37;
includes period of depression 1907-08,
43; main purpose of economic side of ,
43; methods of, Appendix I, 187;
Slavic assistant employed in making,
37, 38; subject of, 4

Building laws, 25

Burial benefits. See Benefits

Capital stock —

Carnegie Steel Company, increase
in, 7

Carnegie Land Company —
( , in Munliall, 18, 48

Carnegie Library, Homestead, 178;
described by W. !•'. Stevens, Appendii
XIII, 255; Slavic books in, 166

Carnegie Library clubs, 88, 257-260;
activities of, 117, 257-260; <

tional classes, 124, 262-264; open to
Slavs, 166, 167, 260-262

Carnegie Relief Fund, 93, 94, 95,
Appendix XI, 245; benefits paid from,
(Table) 95

Carnegie Steel Company —

Classification and earnings of
employes, Homestead Steel Works,
Appendix IV, 215; compensation
paid for work-accidents, 94, (Table)
95; increase in capital stock, 7;
Kloman's mill absorbed by, 5; loans
money to employes to assist in pur-
chasing homes, 58

Carnegie Technical School in Pitts-
burgh, 124

Casualties —

On unprotected grade crossings,
Homestead, Appendix VII, 233

Chamber of Commerce: Report of
Committee on Trade and Commerce,

69 , 237

Chapin, Robert Coit —

The Standard of Living among
Workingmen's Families in New York
City, 51, 52, 67, 70, 103, 104, 105, 142,
181

Child-labor—

None in steel mills, 127

Children —

At work, 1 18; born in each ward in
Homestead, ratio of, to deaths of
children under two in the same ward,
(Table) 146; education of, 118; effect
of overcrowding on Slavic, 145, 146,
147; future prospects of Slavic, 148;
home training of, 118; home training
of Slavic, 148; lack of care in feeding,
64; seldom work outside home, 41,
107, 125

Children of Homestead, The, 118-
128

Christianity and the Social Crisis —
By Walter Rauschcnbusch, 88

Church —

Amusements, 115, 116; expendi-
tures for, 88, 89; influences on Slavs,
152. 1S8, 159. 160

280

INDEX

Churches —

Founded before strike of 1892, 6;
Slavic, 133

Civic conditions, 31, 32

Civic development, 5, 6, 17

Civic efficiency —

Effect of transient population on,
IS

Civic environment, 27, 28, 29. 30, 31,
32

Civic inertia, 26, 173, 178

Civic life —

Effect of industrial conditions on, 4,
35. 30, 37i 39, 40, 41, 42, 171. 172, 173,
178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184

Civic outlook, 128; Slavs' influence on,
128

Clothing, expenditures for, 82, 83,

(Table) 84, 86, 87, 101, 102, 103, 104,
105; by Slavs, 140, 142, 157, (Tables)
152, 156; during depression of 1907-
08, (Table) 98; minimum, 103

College education —

Attitude toward, 126, 127

Colonial Club, 27

Colored. See Negroes

Commercial schools, 125

Community of interest —

Among English workers, 16

" Company" houses. See Housing of
employes

Compensation —

Paid by Carnegie Steel Company
to widows of 42 employes killed in
Allegheny County, (Table) 95; re-
ceived by 42 widows plus Carnegie
Relief benefits, (Table) 95. See also
Work-accidents

Conclusion, 169-184

Congestion of population, 46, 47;

among Slavs, 135, 136, 137. See also
Overcrowding

Cost of living, 66; in Pittsburgh,

Appendix IX, 237. See also Food;
Fuel; Rent; etc.

Cox, John F., 22

Credit-
Buying on, 75, 98, 99, 100. See
also Instalment

Daughters —

Parents' ambition for, 127, 128.
See also Children; Women

Davis, Thomas L., 27

Death benefits. See Benefits

Death rate, 25, 26. See also Infant
mortality

Deaths —

Of children under two years of age
in each ward in Homestead, by racial
group, (Table) 146

Depression of 1907-08 —

Economic effect of, 100; effect of,
on budget investigation, 43, 197;
expenditures during, 43, (Table) 98,
99, 197-198; expenditures for cloth-
ing during, (Table) 98; expenditures
for food by same family in normal
times and during depression, 77,
(Table) 78; expenditures for food
during, (Table) 98; expenditures for
fuel, (Table) 98; expenditures for
furniture, insurance, and sundries
during, (Table) 98, 197; insurance
premiums paid during, 97; privation
among Slavs caused by, 135; savings
drawn from bank during, by racial
group, (Table) 99; savings not in
budgets during, 97

Dinner pail —

Importance of, 64

Disorderly houses, 28

Domestic science —

In schools, 78, 122, 123, 125

Earnings. See Wages

Eastman, Crystal —

Work-accidents and the Law, 93, 95

28l

INDEX

Economic development, 29, 30, 31, 32

Economic independence —
Lack of, 31

Economy —

Result of undue, in fuel, 86; undue,
may lower physical and social stand-
ards, 84, 85, 86. See also Savings,
cost of

Education-
Attitude of Slavs toward, 160;
attitude toward college, 126, 127;
of children, 118; of Slavic children,
159, 160. See also Sundries, Expen-
ditures for

Educational classes —

Carnegie Library Clubs, 1 24

Emergency —

Weekly expenditures by two typical
families in time of, 89, 90

Employes —

Attitude of, toward mill, 174, 175,
176, 177, 178; Carnegie Steel Com-
pany loans to, for purchasing homes,
58; housing of, 18, 19; in Homestead
plant of U. S. Steel Corporation,
Appendix III, 214; racial groups in
Homestead plant of Carnegie Steel
Company, (Table) 13; classification
and earnings of, in Homestead plants,
Appendix IV, 215

Employes owning homes. See House
owners

Employment, steadiness of.
Wages, regularity of

See

English-speaking Europeans —

Expenditures of, for food, 70,
(Tables) 44, 68, 69, 72; expenditures
of, for fuel, (Table) 44; expenditures
of, for insurance, (Table) 44; ex-
penditures of, for other items, (Table)
44; expenditures of, for rent, (Tables)
44, 50, 52; expenditure-, per week by,
(Table) 44; infant mortality tmoo&
(Table) 146; owning horn
57; wages of skilled and unskilled,
(Table) 40; weekly wage of, (Table)
38. See alio general tables and Ap-
pendix II

English-speaking families —

Ideals of, 106; income of, increased
by lodgers, 107, 108

English-speaking households, The,

33-1 28; community of interest among,
16; problems of, 106

Entertainments. See Amusements

Equity —

Question of, involved in strike of
1892, 10, n

Evening schools, 123, 124; for Slavs,
166

Expenditures —

Analysis of budget families by,
(Table) 36; analysis of, by chief
items, (Tables) 44, 45) average, of
Slavic families, (Tables) 140, 152;
average, of Slavic families compared
with others, (Table) 156; by native
whites, (Table) 44; by Negroes,
(Table) 44; by Slavs, (Tables) 44,
152; comparison of, (Table) 156;
during depression of 1907-08, (Table)
98, 99, 197; for instalment on home
during depression of 1907-08, (Table)
98; marginal, 81, 82, 83, (Table) 84,
85, 86; of a family in normal times
and in time of depression, (Table) 98;
of different budget groups, analysis of
average weekly, 102, 103, 104, 105,
106; of families spending less than
$12 a week, (Table) 102; by English-
speaking Europeans, (Table) 44;
ratio of weekly, for various items
between different expenditure groups,
(Table) 84; relative, for food and
rent in different racial groups, 70;
weekly, by two typical families in
time of emergency, 89, 9°- See also
Krnl; Food; Fuel; Clothing; Insur-
ance; and other special items

Expenses —

Reduction of, during depression of
1907-08, 98, 99. See also Expendi-
tures

Family ideals, 4S. 55; fulfilment of,
limited, 171, 172; of English-speak-
ing workmen, 106

282

INDEX

Family life —

Dependent on men's wages, 41;
effect of industrial conditions on, 4,
35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 171, 172, 173,
178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184;
type of, determined by industrial
conditions, 107

Family relationships.

relationships

See Human

Financial condition of municipality,

21, 22

Fitch, John A —

The Steel Workers, 36, 42, 177

Food, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67; and rent,
relative expenditures for, in different
racial groups, 70; a three-times-a-day
problem, 80; budgets, two weekly, of
a thrifty family, (Table) 78; dinner-
pail, 64; discretion in buying, 77;
evils of buying on credit, 75; high
prices of, 66; holiday feasts, 65;
ignorance of values, 78; irregularity of
meals, 64; lack of care in feeding
children, 64; ratios established by
Prof. Atwater, 69, 71; standard of
nourishment, 70, 71; Sunday dinner,
°Si typical bill of fare, 63, 64

Food, expenditures for, 67, 68, 69, 82,

83, 84, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105; by a
poor housekeeper, (Table) 76; by a
thrifty housekeeper, (Table) 76; by
English-speaking Europeans, 70,
(Tables) 44, 68, 69, 72; by expendi-
ture group, (Tables) 45, 68; by
native whites, 70, (Tables) 44, 68, 69,
72; by Negroes, 70, (Tables) 44, 68,
69, 72; by same family in normal
times and during depression, 77,
(Table) 78; by Slavs, 70, 140, 157,
(Tables) 44, 68, 69, 72, 141, 152, 156;
by two housewives of extreme types,
74, 75, (Table) 76; dependent on
thriftiness of housewives, 74, 75, 76,
79, 80; during depression of 1907-08,
(Table) 98, 198; families spending
less than 22 cents per man per day, by
expenditure and racial groups, (Table)
72; in Slavic boarding house, 139,
140; in Slavic home, 141 ; per capita,
(Tables) 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 141;
purchased on special order for

boarders during month account was
kept (Slav family), (Table) 139

Fraternal organizations —

Amusements of, 113, 114, 115, 163,
164; Home Guards, 96; insurance in,
90, (Table) 91; membership, 113;
Modern Woodmen, 96, 113; Odd
Fellows, 115; Order of Elks, 113;
outside charity work of, 115; Pro-
tected Home Circle, 113; Royal
Arcanum, 96, 113; Slavic, 158, 160,
161, 162, 163, 164; Slavic, affiliated
with national, 163; Slavic, benefits
paid by, 161, (Table) 162, 163;
Slavic, insurance in, 161, (Table) 162,
163; Slavic, nationalities segregated
in separate lodges, 164; social fea-
tures of, 113, 114, 115

Frick, H. C—

Cause of antagonism toward, 8;
park given by, 30, 178

" Front room," 55, 56, 85

Fuel, expenditures for, 82, 83, (Table)
84, 87, 102, 103, 104; by English-
speaking Europeans, (Table) 44;
by expenditure group, (Table) 45;
by native whites, (Table) 44; by
Negroes, (Table) 44; by Slavs, 140,
157, (Tables) 44, 152, 156; during
depression of 1907-08, (Table) 98;
results of undue economy in, 86

Furniture, expenditures for, 82, 83,
(Table) 84, 85, 87, 101, 102, 103, 104,
105; by Slavs, 140, 142, (Tables) 152,
156; during depression of 1907-08,
(Table) 98

Future outlook —

Civic and industrial, 1 28

Gardens —

Of workingmen's homes, 47, 48

Girls. See Daughters; Women

Grade crossings —

Unprotected in Homestead, 29;
casualties on, Appendix VI, 233

Great Britain —

Grants by governmental authori-
ties for building operations, 58

283

INDEX

Hays borough, 19

Health-
Expenditures for. See Medicine,
Expenditures for

High schools, 120

Holiday feasts, 65

Hollow, The. See Munhall Hollow

Home Guards, 96

Home Life of the Slavs, 145-157

Home-making, 55, 56, 57, 108, 109, no

Home purchasers —

Among 90 budget families, by
normal weekly income and by racial
group, (Table) 57

Homes owned by employes. See
House owners

Homestead —

As a business center, 29, 30; taxes,
(Table) 20; town plan of, 46, 47;
water and sewerage systems, 23;
boroughs, 4, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 178

Homestead and the great strike, 3-
n

Homestead Bank and Life Insurance
Company, 46

Homestead Park, 19, 30

Homestead Realty Company, 58

Homestead Woman's Club, 116, 121,
122

Homeville, 19

Hospitals, 95

Hours —

Mill, 36, 171, 172

House owners —

Carnegie Steel Company helps
employes to become, 58; English-
speaking Europeans, (Tabic) 57;
native whites, (Table) 57; Negroes,
(Tabic) 57; number of, increased by
considerateness of real estate com-
panies, 31; opportunities for becom-
ing, given workingmen, 57, 58, 61;
Slavs, (Table) 57, 152, 1S3, 1551 why

some workingmen are not, 60, 61, 62;
workingmen as, 45, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60;
workingmen becoming, lessens mo-
bility of labor, 62

Household problem —

Of English-speaking workmen, 106

Housewives —

Efficient and inefficient, 63, 74, 75,
76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 108, 109

Housing conditions, 19, 24, 25, 26, 27,
46, 47, 131, 135, 136, 137; in Munhall
Hollow, 18, 19, 26, 27; overcrowding
decreases with higher wages, 52, 53;
typical, cited, giving rent and wages,
49, 50. See also Overcrowding

Housing of employes, 18, 19

Housing ordinances —
Inadequate, 25

Human relationships, 107-117

Hungarians. See Slavs

Improvements in process —

Recompense paid men for practical
suggestions leading to, 174

Income —

Increased by lodgers, English-
speaking families, 107, 108, (Tables)
201; increased by lodgers, Slavic
families, 42, 140, 142, 143, 144, 157,
(Tables) 201; increased by other
means than lodgers, Slavic families,
142, (Tables) 201; sons' contribu-
tions to, 125, 126, (Tables) 201. See
also Wages

Industrial conditions, 31; at time of
strike of 1892, 7; determine type of
family life, 107; effect of, on civic and
family life, 4, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41,
42, 171, 172, 173, 178, 179, 180, 181,
182, 183, 184; summed up, 31, 32

Industrial development, 4, 5, 12

Industrial Insurance Funds of Ger-
many, 58

Industrial outlook, 128; Slavs' in
lli inn c on, 128

284

INDEX

Industrial suppression —

Inertia the effect of, 10, n, 173,
*74> i75» 17^, 177, 178, 184; outcome
of strike of 1892, 10, 11, 175, 176

Inertia —

Effect of industrial suppression, 10,
n, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 184

Infant mortality, 25, 26; among
English-speaking Europeans, (Table)
146; among native whites, (Table)
146; among Negroes, (Table) 146;
among Slavs, (Table) 146, 147

Instalment —

Buying on, 85. See also Credit;
Expenditures for instalment on home

Insurance —

Benefits under, 96; expenditures
for, 89, 92, 95, 96; important item in
family budget, 95; in fraternal or-
ganizations, 90, (Table) 91 ; in regular
companies, 90, (Table) 91; in Slavic
fraternal organizations, 161, (Table)
162, 163; number of persons insured
in 90 budget families and per cent of
families carrying insurance — by ex-
penditure group, (Table) 91; number
of persons in 90 budget families in-
sured in regular companies and
lodges — by racial group, (Table) 91;
per cent of budget families carrying,
90, (Table) 91, 92; premium pay-
ments continued during depression
1907-08, 97; provisions for, univer-
sal, 97; ratings on men employed in
iron and steel industry, Appendix X,
243

Insurance, expenditures for, 82, 83,
(Table) 84, 89, 92, 95, 96, 101, 102,
103, 104, 105; by English-speaking
Europeans, (Table) 44; by expendi-
ture group, (Table) 45; by native
whites, (Table) 44; by Negroes,
(Table) 44; by Slavs, 140, 157,
(Tables) 44, 152, 156; during de-
pression of 1907-08, 97, (Table) 98

Intemperance, 27, 28, 112, 113, 173;
among Slavs, 140, 149; evil of town,
109; the women's battle against, 109

Isolation of Slavs, 14, 15, 164, 167,
168, 180, 181

Kennywood Park, 30

Kindergartens, 122

Kloman's mill —

Absorbed by Carnegie Steel Com-
pany, s

Labor element —

Antagonistic to H. C. Frick, 8

Labor unions. See Trade unions

Leasing system —

John Munhall Estate, 58

Letts. See Slavs

Life at $1.65 a day, 138-144; eco-
nomic problem of married Slavs, 140,
141, 142, 143, 144; economic problem
of single Slavs, 138, 139, 140, 143;
possibilities of , 179, 180

Lincoln Place, 19

Liquor. See Intemperance; Sundries

Literature —

Available, 88

Lithuanians. See Slavs

Livelihood —

Prospect of an independent, for
steel workers, 182, 183, 184

Location and description of town, 3,

4, 5, 17, 18

Lodgers —

Income increased by, in English-
speaking families, 107, 108; income
increased by, in Slavic families, 42,
140, 142, 143, 144, 157; per cent of
Slavic families taking, 142, (Table)
143. See also Boarding houses

Lodgers. See Fraternal organizations

Magyars. See Slavs

Make-up of the town, 12-32

Margaret Morison Carnegie School,
125

285

INDEX

Margin —

Minimum wage required to assure
practical, 181, 182, 183, 184; reason-
able, above expenditures for necessi-
ties, 105

Marginal expenditures, 81, 82, 83,
(Table) 84, 85, 86; as shown in
typical budgets, 82, 83, 84

McClure Homestead, 4

McKeesport water supply, 24

Meals —

Irregularity of, 64

Medical inspection —

None in Homestead schools, 1 20

Medicine, Expenditures for, 82, 83,
(Table) 84, 87, 101, 102; during de-
pression of 1907-08, (Table) 98

Membership, dues and benefits —
Of 9 Slavic societies in 1908,
(Table) 162

Men employed in Homestead mill —

By racial group and degree of skill,

(Table) 40; classified according to

skill, citizenship, etc., March 1, 1907,

Appendix III, 214

Mendicants, 37

Menu. See Bill of fare

Mesta Machine Company, 19

Methods of budget study —
Appendix I, 187

Midwives, 87

Mill —

And the household, the, 1 71-184;
and the town, the, 3-32; attitude of
employes toward, 174, 175, 176, 177,
178; attitude of newspapers toward,
88, 176; attitude of stockholding
employes toward, 176, 177; character
of Slavic labor in, 134; conditions of
work in, 171, 172, 173, 174; hours of
work in, 36, 171, 172; mental fatigue
caused by work in, 173; no child
labor in, 127; officers, formerly work-
men, 177; per cent of married Slavs
employed in, 180; per cent of skilled
and unskilled Slavs employed in, 134,

I52> 153) P^ cent of Slavs employed
in, 133; prospect of promotion in,
134, 174, 180, 182; site, 5; superin-
tendent of, 177; wages for work in,
171, 180, 181, 182, 183; wages in,
compared with bituminous mines,
181. See also Industrial situation

Minor household expenditures, 82,
83, (Table) 84, 86, 87, 101, 102, 103,
104, 105; during depression of 1907-
08, (Table) 98

Miscellaneous expenditures. See
Other expenditures; Sundries

Modern Woodmen, 96, 113

Morality —

Of Slavic community, 148, 149;
of town, no. See also Disorderly
houses; Intemperance

Moving pictures. See Amusements,
public

Munhall, 178; Carnegie Land Com-
pany houses in, 18, 48; schools, 120;
taxes, 20-22, (Table) 20; town plan
of, 46; water supply, 24, 178

Munhall Estate, John, 18, 19, 26, 27;
leasing system, 58

Munhall Hollow —

Housing conditions in, 18, 19, 26,
27; no public improvements, 19

Municipal finances, 21, 22

Municipal water supply, 23, 24

National distinctions among Slavs,
133

National Vacation Bible School
Committee of New York, 121

Native whites —

I \pcnditures of, for food, 70,
(Tables) 44, 68, 69, 72; expenditures
of, for fuel, (Table) 44; expenditures
of, for insurance, (Table) 44; expendi-
tures of, for other items, (Table) 44;
expenditures of, for rent, (Tables) 44,
50, 52; expenditures per week by,
(Table) 44; infant mortality among,
(Table) 146; owning homes, (Table)

286

INDEX

57; wages of skilled and unskilled,
(Table) 40; weekly wage of, (Table)
38. See also general tables and Ap-
pendix II

Negroes —

Expenditures of, for food, 70,
(Tables) 44, 68, 69, 72; expenditures
of, for fuel, insurance, and other items,
(Table) 44; expenditures of, for rent,
(Tables) 44, 50, 52; expenditures per
week by, (Table) 44; infant mortality
among, (Table) 146; owning homes,
(Table) 57; social position of, 14;
wages of skilled and unskilled, (Table)
40; weekly wage of, (Table) 38. Sea
also general tables and Appendix II

New York Central System, 29

Newspapers —

Attitude of, toward mill, 88, 176;
expenditures for, during depression of
1907-08, (Table) 98

Nickelodeons. See Amusements

Nurses —

No school, 120; no visiting, 87

Nutrition Investigation, Report on —
By Frank P. Underhill, Ph. D., 70,
71, 141

Odd Fellows, 115

Officers-
Mill, formerly workmen, 177

Offices-
Women in, 125

Order of Elks, 113

Ordinance —

Borough, regulating sanitary con-
ditions, 25; affecting railroads in-
effective, 29. See also Housing ordi-
nances; Sanitary ordinances

Other expenditures: The budget as a
whole, 81-106. See also Sundries

Overcrowding —

Absence of specific regulation con-
cerning, 25; decreases with higher
wages, 52, 53; effect of, on Slavic
children, 145, 146, 147; in Slavic

families, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 143,
144; number of persons per room
in 21 courts — Families which took
lodgers compared with families which
did not, (Table) 144. See also
Congestion

Parents —

Interest of, in school, 118, 119, 120;
ambition for daughters, 127, 128; am-
bition for sons, 126, 127, 128

Parlor. See "Front Room"

Pay Friday, 37

Pennsylvania Act —

To enable borough councils to es-
tablish, Appendix V, 218

Pennsylvania lines, 29

Pensions —

Fund set aside by United States
Steel Corporation to provide, 95,
Appendix XII, 249

Philanthropic movements —

Attitude of workmen toward, 178

Pinkertons —

In strike of 1892, 9

Pittsburgh —

Cost of living in, Appendix IX,
237; water supply, 24

Pittsburgh and Lake Erie tracks, 29

Pittsburgh, Virginia and Charles-
ton tracks, 29

Playgrounds —
School, 120, 121

Poles. See Slavs

Political divisions. See Borough di-
visions

Political situation, 22, 23

Politics —

Among Slavs, 165, 166

Population —

Congestion of, 46, 47; congestion
of, among Slavs, 135, 136, 137; effect
of transient, on civic efficiency, 15;

287

INDEX

elements of, at time of strike of 1892,
5, 6; elements of, cause of change in,
15; elements of present, 3, 4, 12, 13,
14; native and foreign born in four
boroughs of Allegheny County, (Table)
13; native and foreign born in Home-
stead, (Table) 13; preponderance of
males in, 15; segregation of present,
into groups, 14. See also Housing
conditions

Prevention of work-accidents,
movement for, 92, 93

Privy vaults, unflushed. See Toilets

Profits of industry —

Not reinvested in Homestead, 31

Promotion —

Prospect of, among Slavs, 134, 180;
prospect of, in mill, 134, 174, 180, 182

Protected Home Circle, 113

Prudential Insurance Company, 96;
rates for iron and steel workers, Ap-
pendix X, 243

Public-
Indifference of, to sanitary condi-
tions, 26

Railroad grade crossings, 29

Rauschenbusch, Walter —

Christianity and the Social Crisis,
88

Real estate dealers —

Number of house owners increased
by consideratencss of, 31

Recreation, Expenditures for, 89,
no; during depression of 1907-08,
(Table) 98

Religious life of Slavs. See Church
injluenccs

Rent—

And food — Relative expenditures
for, in different racial groups, 70

Rent, Expenditures for, 48, 49, 50,
S«. 52. 53, 54, 55, 82, 83, (Table) 84,
101, 102, 103, 104, 105; by En
speaking Kuro[>eans, (Tables) 44,

50, 52; by expenditure group, (Ta-
bles) 45, 50, 52; by native whites,
(Tables) 44, 50, 52; by Negroes,
(Tables) 44, 50, 52; by Slavs, 140,
141, 157, (Tables) 44, 50, 52, 152,
156; determined by wages, 51, 52;
during depression of 1907-08, 43, 53,
198; in the household budget, 46-62;
of 77 house-renting families — average
amount and percentage of total ex-
penditure— by racial and expenditure
group, (Tables) 52

Roumanians. See Slavs

Royal Arcanum, 96, 113

Russians. See Slavs

Saloons. See Intemperance

Sanitary conditions —

Borough ordinance regulating, 25;
indifference of public to, 26; of
schools, 119, 120; responsibility for
poor, 26, 27

Sanitary ordinances —

Lack of leadership necessary to
obtain, 178

Sanitary regulations —

Lack of, 23, 24, 25, 26, 53

Savings, 89, 100; absence of, in bud-
gets during depression of 1907-08, 97;
advantages of, 98; cost of, in health
and pleasure, 79, 100, 101, 102, 103;
drawn from bank during depression of
1907-08, by racial group, (Table) 99;
object of, 97

Savings bank accounts —
Of Slavs, 153, 156

Schedules —

Facsimiles of cards, 188-191

Schooley, M. P., 27

Schools —

Carnegie Technical School in Tilts
burgh, 124; commercial, 125; domes-
tii s. ii-iuc in, 78, 122, 123, 125;
evening, 123, 124; evening, for Slavs,
166; facilities of, 1 19; high, 120;
instruction in, 120; Intend of Dt
nuts in, 118, 119, 120; kindergarten,

288

INDEX

122; manual training in, 122, 123,
124; Margaret Morison Carnegie,
125; Munhall, 120; new buildings,
119; no medical inspection and
nurses in, 120; parochial, 159, 160;
playgrounds, 120, 121; sanitary con-
dition of, 119, 120; vacation, 121.
See also Carnegie Library educational
classes

Schwab Manual Training School, 78,
122, 123, 178

Service, Expenditures for —

During depression of 1907-08,
(Table) 98

Seven-day labor —
Appendix VIII, 236

Sewerage system —
In Homestead, 23

Sick benefits. See Benefits

Skating rink. See Amusements, public

Skilled and unskilled —

Wages of, English-speaking Euro-
peans, native whites, Negroes and
Slavs, (Table) 40, 41. See also Ap-
pendix IV

Slav Organized, The, 158-168

Slavic boarding-houses —

Expenditures for food in, 139, 140;
overcrowding, 136, 137, 138, 139,
140, 143, 144

Slavic books —

Carnegie Library, 166

Slavic children —

Education of, 159, 160; effect of
overcrowding on, 145, 146, 147;
future prospects of, 148; training of,
148

Slavic churches, 133

Slavic community —

Moral tone of, 148, 149

Slavic courts. See Housing conditions

Slavic families —

Average expenditures of, (Tables)
140, 152; average expenditures of,
compared with other races, (Table)

19 289

156; per cent of, taking lodgers, 142,
(Table) 143

Slavic Fellow Citizens, Our —
By Emily Greene Balch, 13

Slavic fraternal organizations, 158,
160, 161, 162, 163, 164; affiliated
with national organizations, 163;
amusements of, 163, 164; benefits
paid by, 161, (Table) 162, 163;
insurance in, 161, (Table) 162, 163;
nationalities segregated in separate
lodges, 164

Slavic home —

Expenditures for food in, 141;
typical, 14s, 152

Slavic household —

Notes on a typical, 154, 155

Slavic organizations —

In Homestead, Appendix XIV, 271

Slavic parochial schools, 159, 160

Slavic women —

Overwork and lack of care during
confinement among, 147

Slavs-
Ambitions of, 134, 153, 155, 156;
Americanizing, 167, 168; amusements
of, private, 149, 150, 151; amusements
of, public, 151; as neighbors, 155;
attitude of, toward education, 160;
bank accounts of, 153, 156; capacity
of, for social advancement, 151, 152,
153. i55i 157; Carnegie Library
Clubs open to, 166, 167; character of
work of, in mill, 134; church in-
fluences on, 152, 158, 159, 160, 161;
congestion of population among, 135,
136, 137; description of district
occupied by, 131; economic problem
of married, on $1.65 a day, 140, 141,
142, 143, 144; economic problem of
single, on $1.65 a day, 138, 139, 140,
143; elements composing immigrant,
131; employment of , quickly affected
by depression, 135; evening schools
for, 166; expenditures of, for clothing,
140, 142, 157, (Tables) 152, 156;
expenditures of, for food, 70, 140, 157,
(Tables) 44, 68, 69, 72, 152, 156;
expenditures of, for food per capita,
141; expenditures of, for fuel, 140,3

INDEX

157, (Tables) 44, 152, 156; expendi-
tures of, for furniture, 140, 142,
(Tables) 152, 156; expenditures of,
for insurance, 140, 157, (Tables) 44,
152, 156; expenditures of, for other
items, 140, 157, (Tables) 44, 152, 156;
expenditures of, for rent, 140, 141,
157, (Tables) 44, 50, 52, 152, 156;
expenditures per week by, (Tables)
44, 152; general situation, 138;
illiteracy of, 166, 167; inadequate
water supply, 136, 137; income of,
increased by lodgers, 42, 140, 142,
143, 144, 157; income of, increased
by other means than lodgers, 142;
infant mortality among, as compared
with other groups, 145, (Table) 146;
infant mortality among, cause of, 147;
influence of, on civic and industrial
future, 128; intemperance among,
140, 149; isolation and lack of
assimilation of, 14, 15, 164, 167, 168,
180,181; mid wives employed by, 147;
mode of living among, 132, 133, 134,
138, 139, 140; national distinctions
among, 133; number of, in Home-
stead, 132; old-world customs among,
150; owning homes, (Table) 57, 152,
!53> x55; Per cent of, employed in
mill, 133; per cent of married, em-
ployed in mill, 180; per cent of
skilled and unskilled, 134, 152, 153;
politics of, 165, 166; privation among,
caused by depression of 1907-08, 135;
problems of the, 129-168; prospect of
promotion of, in mill, 134, 180; reli-
gion of, 152, 158, 159, 160; social life
of, 149, 150, 151, 163, 164; style of
dressing among, 150, 151; tempera-
ment of, 133; wages of, 153; wages of
skilled and unskilled, (Table) 40;
weekly wage of, (Table) 38; why
immigrate, 131, 132. See also general
tables and Appendix II

Slovaks. See Slavs

Social expenses, 87, 88

Social features —

Fraternal organizations, 113, 114,
"5

Social life—

Of Slavs, 149, 150, 151, 163, 164.
See also Amusements

Social reform in America —
Strongest imjKtus toward, 4

Social relationships. See Human
relationships

Socialism —

An individual hope for some work-
men, 176

Sons —

Contribution of, to income, 125,
126; parents' ambition for, 126, 127,
128

St. Magdalene Parochial School, 159

Standard of Living among Work-
ingmen's Families in New York
City, The—

By Robert Coit Chapin, 51, 52, 67,
70, 103, 104, 105, 142, 181

Standards of living —

Determining factors in, 39, 40;
lowered by undue economy, 84, 85,
86. See also Family ideals

Steel making —

Dangers attending, 36; general
process of, 35; hardships attending,
35,36; hours of labor in, 36, 171, 172;
men paid for suggestions leading to
improvements in process, 174; Sun-
day work, 35, 176. See also Mill

Steel workers —

Prospect of an independent liveli-
hood for, 182, 183, 184

Steel Workers, The—

By John A. Fitch, 36, 42, 177

Stevens, W. F —

Description of Carnegie Library,
Homestead, Appendix XIII, 255

Stockholders —

Attitude of employes as, 176, 177

Stores —

Women in, 125

Strike of 1892 —

Beginning of the, 8; churches
founded before, 6; effect of, on trade
unionism, n; elements of population
at time of, 5, 6; general industrial
conditions at time of, 7; hopelessness
and Inertia result of, 10, 11, 174; in-
dustrial suppression outcome of, 10,
11, 175, 176; inequality of wages at

j()o

INDEX

time of, 7; keynote of, trade union-
ism, 8; life during the, 9, 10; out-
come of the, 10, 175; Pinkertons'
part in, 9; question of equity in-
volved in, 10, n; trade unionism at
time of, 4, 6

Sunday dinner, 65

Sunday work, 36, 176

Sundries, Expenditures for, 81, 82,
83, (Table) 84, 88, 89, 90, 101, 102,
103, 104, 105; by English-speaking
Europeans, (Table) 44; by expendi-
ture groups, (Table) 45; by native
whites, (Table) 44; by Negroes,
(Table) 44; by Slavs, 140, 157,
(Tables) 44, 152, 156; during de-
pression of 1907-08, (Table) 98.
See also general tables

Superintendent of mill, 177

Suppression. See Industrial suppres-
sion

Survey, The —

Articles quoted, 181

Table and dinner pail, 63-80

Taxes-
Effect of borough divisions on, 19,
20, 21, 22, 178; Homestead, (Table)
20; Munhall, (Table) 20

Taxpayers' League, 27

Tobacco, expenditures for —
82, 83, (Table) 84, 101, 102

Toilets-
Indoor, 51, 55, (Table) 54; out-
door, 25, 51, 53, 131, 137

Town-
Location and description of, 3, 4, 5,
17, 18

Town Plan —

Homestead, 46, 47; Munhall, 46;
West Homestead, 46

Town site, Homestead as a, 17-32

Town's growth —
Changes affecting, 1 28

Trade unionism —

At time of strike of 1892, 4, 6;
effect of strike of 1892 on, n; em-
ploye proposing, is discharged, 175;
keynote of strike of 1892, 8

Trade unions, 4, 7, 8; beneficial effect
of, on wages and hours, in bitumin-
ous mines, 181; none to give common
interest, 164; older men lack confi-
dence in, 175, 176. See also Amal-
gamated Association of Iron and Steel
Workers

Transportation facilities, 5

Underhill, Frank P.—

Report on Nutrition Investigation,
70, 71, 141

U. S. Bureau of Labor, 66

United States Census, 13

U. S. Commissioner of Labor, 52, 67,

U. S. Department of Agriculture, 69

United States Steel Corporation —
Accident relief plan of, 95, Appen-
dix XII, 249; attitude of, 184; plans
of, for prevention of work-accidents,
92

Unskilled work —

Not always temporary stage, 41

Unskilled workers-
Increase in number of, 179; per-
manent factor in social life, 180. See
also Skilled and unskilled

Vacation schools, 121

Ventilation —

Absence of specific regulation con-
cerning, 25

Wage —

Minimum, required to assure prac-
tical margin, 181, 182, 183, 184

291

INDEX

Wage-earners —

Types of, earning $12 a week or
less, $12 to $14.99 a week, $15 to
$19.99 a week, and $20 a week and
over, 38-39

Wages —

Analysis of budget families by
weekly, (Table) 36; beneficial effect
of trade unions on, in bituminous
mines, 181; determine expenditure
for rent, 51,52; family life dependent
on, 41; for work in mill, 171, 180, 181,
182, 183; inequality of, at time of
strike of 1892, 7; mill, compared with
bituminous mines, 181; reductions
in rate of, 42; regularity of, 42; scale
fixed by Amalgamated Association of
Iron and Steel workers, 6, 7, 8;
skilled and unskilled, (Table) 40, 41;
Slavs, 153; sliding scale of , introduced
in 1889, 7; weekly, of English-speak-
ing Europeans, native whites, Ne-
groes, Slavs, (Table) 38

Washing machines, 87

Water supply —

Inadequate in Slavic district, 136,
137; McKeesport, 24; Munhall, 24,
178; municipal, 23, 24; Pittsburgh,
24

Water, running —

In houses, 24, 48, 51, (Table) 54,
58; in house, and indoor closets,
families having, by weekly rent,
(Table) 54; outside houses, 24, 25,
48, 5*. S3, 131. 136. 137

Water system —

In Homestead, 23

West Homestead, 4, 18, 19; town
plan of, 46

Westinghouse Electric Works —
Girls employed in, 125

Whitaker, 19

Women —

In offices, 125; in stores, 125; in
Westinghouse Electric Works, 125;
seldom work outside home, 41, 107,
125

Women's clubs —

Activities, 114, 116, 121, 122, Ap-
pendix XIII, 264

Work-
Conditions of, in mill, 171, 172, 173,
174; hours of, in mill, 36, 171, 172;
mental fatigue of mill, 173

Work, wages and the cost of living,
35-45

Work-accidents, 92; burden of loss in,
95, 96; compensation for, 94, 95, Ap-
pendices XI and XII, 245, 249; com-
pensation paid by Carnegie Steel
Company for, 94, (Table) 95, Appen-
dix XI, 245; movement for preven-
tion of, 92, 93; movement of United
States Steel Corporation for relief of,
92, Appendix XII, 249; newspaper
reports of, 93; no compensation for,
paid families of aliens, 161; plans of
United States Steel Corporation for
relief of victims of, 95, Appendix
XII, 249

Work-accidents and the Law —
By Crystal Eastman, 93, 95

Workingmen —

Attitude toward philanthropic
movements, 178; opportunities for
buying homes given, 57, 58, 61; own-
ing homes lessens mobility of labor,
62; why some do not own homes, 60,
61, 62. See also House owners

Workingmen's homes —

Architecture, 47; gardens, 47, 48.
See also Housing conditions

Workmen's Compensation Act (Eng-
lish), 96

292

THE SURVEY

SOCIAL CHARITABLE CIVIC

A JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTIVE PHILANTHROPY

PHE SURVEY is a weekly magazine for all those who
■ believe that progress in this country hinges on
social service: that legislation, city government, the care
of the unfortunate, the cure of the sick, the education of
children, the work of men and the homes of women, must
pass muster in their relation to the common welfare.

As Critic, The Survey examines conditions of life and
labor, and points where they fail: how long hours, low pay,
insanitary housing, disease, intemperance, indiscriminate
charity, and lack of recreation, break down character and
efficiency.

As Student, The Survey examines immigration, industry,
congestion, unemployment, to furnish a solid basis of fact
for intelligent and permanent betterment.

As Program, The Survey stands for Prevention: Pre-
vention of Poverty through wider opportunity and adequate
charity; Prevention of Disease through long-range systems
of sanitation, of hospitals and sanatoriums, of good homes,
pure food and water, a chance for play out-of-doors; Pre-
vention of Crime, through fair laws, juvenile courts, real
reformatories, indeterminate sentence, segregation, discip-
line and probation; Prevention of Inefficiency, both industrial
and civic, through practice in democracy, restriction of
child labor, fair hours, fair wages, enough leisure for reading
and recreation, compulsory school laws and schools that
fit for life and labor, for the earning of income and for
rational spending.

EDWARD T. DEVINE - - - EDITOR

GRAHAM TAYLOR - - ASSOCIATE EDITOR

IO5 EAST 22D

street {2 00 YEARLY

NEW YORK

RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION PUBLICATIONS

THE PITTSBURGH SURVEY

The most significant piece of investigation the country has seen.
— "American Magazine."

The findings of the Pittsburgh Survey are to be published in
six volumes during 1910, under the editorial direction of Paul U.
Kellogg, Director of the Pittsburgh Survey. Four of these books
are now ready:

WOMEN AND THE TRADES

"By ELIZABETH BEARDSLEY BUTLER
Former Secretary of the Consumers' League of New Jersey

The first general survey of the occupations open to wage-
earning women in an American city.

8vo, 440 pages? 40 full-page illustrations p_i_~ Pr»c+f-»a Jrf $f 79
of women at their work, by Lewis W. Hine. rMCe> rOStpaid, J>*./Z

WORK-ACCIDENTS AND THE LAW

<By CRYSTAL EASTMAN
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During the year studied, five hundred industrial wage-earners

were killed at their work in Allegheny County, Pa. The story of

their hazards is dramatic and compelling.

8vof 350 pages ; 38 full-page illustrations by P-i-- P^cf^-, '<A <C f 7 f
Lewis W. Hine, Joseph Stella, and others. **lCe, JTOStpaia, $*♦/*

HOMESTEAD: THE HOUSEHOLDS OF A MILL TOWN

<By MARGARET F. BYINGTON
Assistant Secretary, Charity Organization Department, Russell Sage Foundation

A clearly drawn picture of the home and community life of the

steel workers.

8vo, 3 10 pages; 41 full-page illustrations by prirp. pnQf nxiA $170
Lewis W. Hine, Joseph Stella and others. ^rl^t roStpaiO, CDK/U

THE STEEL WORKERS

<B\> JOHN A. FITCH
Formerly Expert, New York Department of Labor

A study of the men who make steel by one who lived among
them.

!r^^";^rir.tS'ioX,bsy P"ce, Postpaid, $1.71

The entire set of the Pittsburgh Survey volumes, to be issued at $1.50
net each, will be as follows:

THE PITTSBURGH DISTRICT-Sympotlum by John R. Commons, Florence Kelley,

Robert A. Woodi. Peter Roberts, Charles Mulford Robinson and others.
THE STEEL WORKERS-John A. Fl

HOMESTEAD : THE HOUSEHOLDS OF A MILL TOWN-Margaret F. Byington.
WOMEN AND THE TRADES-EIizaheth Be*«Wey Butler.
WORK-ACCIDENTS AND THE LAW— Cryiut Eaatm.m.
PITTSBURGH t THE GIST OF THE SURVEY-Paul U. Kellogg.

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RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION PUBLICATIONS

MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS

By LUTHER HALSEY GULICK, M.D., and LEONARD P. AYRES. Ph.D.

THE first American work on a subject of the utmost im-
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The only source of information as to what medical inspection is and
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An important contribution to the cause of education. — Journal of Education.

Lucidly exhaustive and admirably arranged, the monograph will assist in the
great work, scarcely begun, of supplying the sound body that is needed for the
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286 Pages; 6 Charts; 64 Forms; 31 Tables. ' HCC, 1 OStpHlQ, $1.00

LAGGARDS IN OUR SCHOOLS

A STUDY OF RETARDATION AND ELIMINATION IN CITY SCHOOL

SYSTEMS
By LEONARD P. AYRES, Ph.D.

FORMERLY GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS FOR PORTO RICO AND CHIEF OF THE DIVISION OF

STATISTICS OF THE INSULAR DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION-, SECRETARY OF THE BACKWARD

CHILDREN INVESTIGATION OF THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION; CO-AUTHOR

OF MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS, ETC.

A SIXTH of all the children in American city school systems
■*»• are repeating grades, at an expense to the taxpayers of
$27,000,000; large foreign populations do not produce the highest
percentage of this "retardation"; physical defects account for
only 9 per cent of it; irregular attendance is one of the largest
factors; the child who starts youngest makes slowest progress,
but stays longer in school — these are some of the striking points
brought out by Mr. Ayres's study.

Your book, "Laggards in Our Schools," has rendered a most real service to public
education in America. — Wm. H. Maxwell, Supt. of Schools, New York City.

252 Packs; 106 Tables; 38 Diagrams. ' HCC, 1 0Stp31Q, JpI.^O

AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS

By M. LOUISE GREENE, M.Pd., Ph.D. (Yale)

A N exceedingly interesting and thoroughly practical book on
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in public parks and at the homes, as well as gardens carried on in
connection with regular school work. Based upon personal study
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IO5 EAST 22D STREET, NEW YORK

RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION PUBLICATIONS

HOUSING REFORM

A Handbook for Use in American Cities
By LAWRENCE VEILLER

Secretary Tenement House Commission of J900; Deputy Commissioner New York Tenement

House Department under Mayor Seth Low ; Director Department for the Improvement

of Social Conditions of the New York Charity Organization Society; Joint

Author The Tenement Problem; Director National Housing Association.

As Mr. de Forest points out in the introduction, this book is
written by u the person most competent by knowledge and experi-
ence to deal with the subject." Mr. Veiller is qualified as a
reformer, as "a lobbyist in behalf of the common welfare," as a
public official, to treat housing reform in a practical way. He
tells not only the need but the remedy, and how to secure it.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD. BY ROBERT W. de FOREST

I. Housing Evils and Their Significance.

II. Some Popular Fallacies.

III. Congestion and Overcrowding.

IV. The Housing Problem a Three-fold One.

V. How to Start a Movement for Housing Reform.

VI. The Essentials of a Housing Investigation.

VII. Model Tenements and Their Limitations.

VIII. Municipal Tenements and Municipal Regulation.

IX. Essential Principles of a Housing Law.

X. What a Housing Law Should Contain.

XI. The Enforcement of Housing Laws.

XII. How to Secure Legislative Reforms.

XIII. The Field of Private Effort.

XIV. A Chapter of "Don'ts."

Sample Schedules for Housing Investigations.
Index.

220 Pages; Price, Postpaid, $1.25

SOME SENTENCES FROM HOUSING REFORM

No growing American city, however free from tenements now, can afford
to be without building regulations, to prevent dark rooms and unsanitary
conditions.

No housing evils are necessary ; none need be tolerated. Where they
exist they are always a reflection upon the intelligence, rightmindedness and
moral tone of the community.

Reforms not based upon carefully ascertained facts will be found to
have no permanent value. The breastworks which defend the law are made
of the materials dug out in the Investigations.

CHARITIES PUBLICATION COMMITTEE

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